


how to return this rage (how it circles endless)

by frankie_31



Series: the place between [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Abused Stiles Stilinski, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Feral Stiles Stilinski, Gen, Hurt Peter Hale, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Mute Stiles Stilinski, POV Peter Hale, Past Child Abuse, The Hale Family (Teen Wolf) Lives, also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-06 03:20:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20500010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_31/pseuds/frankie_31
Summary: There is an ironic balance to the situation that strikes Peter as especially humorous. Typically, Peter is not bitten by humans.Typically, werewolves are the ones who do the biting.But, here in the forest ringing the Hale House, there is certainly a feral human boy and he has certainly bitten Peter.It’s partly Peter’s fault. Maybe thirty percent. He had stuck his hand within biting distance.





	1. this terrible mirror, gutted

**Author's Note:**

> This story is born from [this](https://faladrast.tumblr.com/post/187283630197/a-fall-of-snow-by-faladrast-a-steter-picture) prompt by faladrast. It clearly grew into a monster.

There is an ironic balance to the situation that strikes Peter as especially humorous. Typically, Peter is not bitten by humans. 

Typically, werewolves are the ones who do the biting. 

But, here in the forest ringing the Hale House, there is certainly a feral human boy and he has certainly bitten Peter. 

It’s partly Peter’s fault. Maybe thirty percent. He had stuck his hand within biting distance. 

He’d been doing his nightly perimeter check while the family unwound and had heard a strange thrashing sound a half mile east of the house. He’d gone to investigate, as a Left Hand should, and come across a human boy crumpled in a snowy meadow. The snow had come down especially thick today as they were deep in winter and the boy is covered in mud and snow and what looked worryingly like blood. 

He had been wearing all natural clothes, tanned leather pants and wraps of fur in place of shoes. One leg was stretched out beside his collapsed form, the other tucked under him. Peter had crept closer slowly, scenting the frigid air. 

“Are you alright?” He’d asked and the boy had remained still. 

Peter could hear shallow breathing and now that he was closer he could smell the blood. 

“Are you awake?” 

He’d crawled a little closer, reached out a hand to prod the boy’s shoulder and that’s when the little devil had snapped Peter’s fingers up in his teeth. 

The boy had drawn blood, even crushed one of Peter’s nails, and Peter swept back out of reach. 

“Christ,” Peter hissed, shaking his hand back and forth. 

The boy was a wild animal now, scrabbling at what looked to be a bear trap clamped on his ankle. He was making a terrible gasping sound, the thrashing that had drawn Peter had been him straining with all his might against the trap. 

“You’ve certainly got yourself in trouble,” Peter says, examining his healing fingernail to hide his wounded pride. “If you want help, you’ll have to hold still.”

The boy doesn’t seem to hear him, he’d begun wrenching his foot against the trap and Peter winces at the sound of tearing tendons. 

“Blood loss or shock is going to knock you out eventually,” Peter drawls and he shrugs out of his jacket. He holds it up like a shield and approaches the boy. “I’ll let you loose if you promise to keep your teeth to yourself.”

If anything, this spurs the boy on further. The gasping sound becomes more guttural and the boy is alternately swiping at Peter and pulling at the trap’s teeth. Peter thinks if he could be screaming he would. 

“Alright. That’s enough,” Peter says and he darts in to throw his jacket over the boy’s head and wrench open the trap. 

The boy flings the jacket off, panting and coughing, pulls his foot out and limps for the tree line on his hands and good foot. Peter follows him, waiting for the shock to run its course. 

It doesn’t take more than a few moments and Peter stands over the boys prone form with his hands on his hips. The boy is watching him from under flagging eyelids, panting softly and trying weakly to sit up. 

Peter waits for his heartbeat to slow and then scoops him up, carrying him like he would a princess. The boy is dead weight, head lolling back and limbs dangling. Peter stops in the snowy meadow and manages to drape his coat over the boy and he jogs back towards the house. 

It’s not until he’s in the glow of the house lights that he spots the garish, puckered scar curving across the boys’ throat. It’s a gnarly wound, obviously deep, and it’s healed in a stark and bumpy streak across the boys’ throat. 

“Talia,” he calls, swinging the front door open. She appears quickly, already twining her waist-length hair into a thick braid. Laura pads behind her, barefoot and in pajamas. 

“I smelled the blood,” Talia says in greeting. “What did you drag in tonight, brother?”

“A human boy,” Peter says and Talia opens the door to the medical room. “Laura, fetch your father.”

As werewolves, they recover from most things on their own. But necessity has lead to them needing to have the tools and a space to reset incorrectly healed bones or sew up particularly bad wounds without human interference. 

He sets the boy on what serves as their gurney, a tall twin sized bed with plastic sheets. He then takes the time to properly observe the boy. He’s strange looking, long-limbed and befreckled. He has a wide mouth and a thick fringe of dark lashes. Rosy cheeks. Short hair cropped indelicately, most definitely by a knife. 

Peter is very nearly obsessed.

Then the boy opens his eyes, revealing a deep amber that reminds Peter of Tennessee whiskey. 

He’s obviously afraid, teeth bared and that coarse breathing sounds starts up again. He’s weak from blood loss and Peter presses a hand to the blood-streaked skin above the bear trap wound. He begins drawing the pain out and the boys’ eyes roll up in his head and he passes out again. 

“He smells like...elk,” Talia says, scenting the air. 

“That explains why a feral boy living in our wood escaped our notice,” Peter replies and he motions for Talia to hand him the wound care kit. “The flood a few weeks back from the Trinity River. It displaced the elk herd in Starvation Flats. He must have left with the elk.”

“That’s probably eighty miles away,” Talia says. She presses a closed fist to her mouth. “How did he get out there? I can’t smell electricity on him or pesticide. Not even fluoride from the water treatment. He smells like an animal.”

“He’s been out there for awhile,” Peter says and he’s just begun sopping up the blood when Talia’s husband, Caleb, appears in the doorway. He’s also in pajamas and he rushes over to the sink and begins scrubbing his hands and forearms. 

“I sent Laura for antibiotics,” he says over his shoulder. “What happened to the boy?”

“Bear trap,” Peter says, stepping around the bed to lay a hand on the boys’ forehead. 

“I work a hell shift in the emergency O.R. and not thirty minutes after I finally lay down my own family brings the O.R. to me. Talia, love, what do I have to do to get a cup of coffee? I’d give the moon for an i.v. of Kohna,” Caleb says, all in a rush, examining the boys’ wound. “Nasty. Infection is our biggest concern. And I don’t love this Achilles connection either. I can stabilize him but he’s going to need physical therapy.”

“I don’t think we should hand him over to the humans until we can be sure why he was out there,” Peter says, a foreign little curl of possessiveness in his stomach. “What if he left some horrible situation? We can’t just feed him to the human government machine.”

“You sound as you did when you were a pup,” Talia says with a small smile. She kisses Caleb’s ear and heads towards the door. “The humans have improved their systems a little, brother.”

“Although. You might not be completely wrong,” Caleb tells Peter, reaching up and tilting the boys’ chin. “The scarring on his neck is a doozy as well. Looks intentional too. I’d say someone sliced him.”

“Color me surprised,” Peter says, trailing a finger over the brow of the boy. “How old is he?”

Werewolf aging skewed the scale enough that it was difficult for them to tell humans ages accurately.

“Mid- to late teens. Seventeen? Eighteen?” Caleb answered. “But due to the malnourishment and the—uh—yeah. These are untreated chicken pox scars. The hypertrophic throat scarring. He’s been out there for awhile. I can’t accurately use the throat scar as a time marker but it’s been at least two years. We should check missing persons. If this throat was healed in a modern medical environment it wouldn’t be nearly this ...unseemly.”

“I think Derek is on duty tonight,” Peter says and pulls out his phone to send a text. “I’ll see what he can find.”

“Sounds good, brother,” Caleb says and Peter leeches a little more pain out. “Another twenty minutes and I’ll have this as patched as I can. I’m not a plastic surgeon though. And I don’t have an expertise in these more delicate tendons. He needs more specialized care, Peter.”

“How long do I have?” Peter asks and Caleb shrugs. 

“Day or so,” he says. “Two at most, but at that point corrective surgery might be required.”

“That’s enough,” Peter says and he watches Caleb pull at a needle and thread. “I just need time to research. Make sure we aren’t sending him from one trap to another.”

“I stand beside you,” Caleb says, making eye contact with Peter over the boy. “Always.”

Peter preens internally at his Alpha’s mate’s approval. His boy squirms a little and Peter sucks more pain. His phone trills in his pocket.

Derek’s sent him an e-packet of all the missing children from the last fifteen years from the area. Peter scrolls through the files rapidly, chronologically, comparing the missing children’s picture with his boy on the table. 

Around the seven year section, he finds him. 

_ Mieczysław Stilinski _. 

“Second opinion,” he prompts Caleb, turning the phone to him. 

“That’s him. Missing seven years. He’s been out there for nearly a decade,” Caleb says, almost impressed. He drops the needle and pliers on the metal tray and begins wrapping the leg. “I recognize that name.”

“Stilinksi,” Peter muses. It is familiar. He went to a Christmas party with a Stilinski this year. 

“The Sheriff,” Talia says from the door. She’s got a mug of coffee in her hand. “He’s a Stilinski. Wife died five or six years back. The child was already missing. We weren’t in town when he disappeared. When we returned the trail had already gone cold.”

“That’s right,” Peter says, scrubbing his fingers through his goatee. “The Argent brood was in town. We went to Belize, if I recall.”

“Dreadful business,” Talia sighs and she sets the coffee near Caleb then hoists herself to sit on the counter. “You think the throat wound is intentional, Caleb?”

“Unfortunately,” Caleb answers and he picks up one of the boys’ arms. Lifting the sleeve reveals a handful of similar scars on the backs of his forearms. “I thought so—defensive wounds. Someone tried to hurt this boy.”

“And he ran away into the woods to escape them with his throat cut open,” Peter finishes. “And lived. What an extraordinary boy.”

“Peter,” Talia says and he flicks his eyes towards her perch on the counter. Her posture is relaxed. One leg pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on her knee. But her face is laser focused. “You can’t keep him.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Peter says and Caleb swivels to pin him with a look. “I mean it. I can’t keep the Sheriff’s only son as a pet. I know that.”

“See that you do,” Talia says and Caleb begins ruffling through the fur wrap on Mieczysław’s torso. There are a myriad of scars revealed underneath, puckered puncture wounds and trailing claw marks. He’s also filthy. 

“Boy needs a bath,” Caleb says, folding the furs back over and heading to the sink. “And I’m going back to sleep.”

“Do you need help?” Talia asks and Peter shakes his head. “While I was making coffee, Rachel helped me come up with a story that allows us to safely return him.”

”Always helps to have a lawyer for a sibling and pack mate,” Peter says wryly. 

“I’ll bring a sweater of Laura’s down. Try and get blood on it like she’d sewed him up. And I’ll bring some of the twins’ clothes,” Talia says from the doorway. She hesitates a moment, a melancholy smell seeping from her. “They were probably in his class.”

“That’s a peculiar thought. Thank you, Alpha,” Peter says and he begins the delicate process of removing the fur and leather wraps without tearing them. 

The boy is extremely malnourished. 

The ridges of his ribs stand in stark relief, leading to a toned stomach and the valley of his hips. His arms are corded with wiry muscles and moles dot the entire expanse of his body. When Peter peels off his pants and what serves as shoes, he reveals an anklet on Mieczysław’s good foot. 

Thin chain, real gold. Broken latch but it’s been threaded together with a length of electrical wire. The small plate on the anklet reads _ Claudia. _

Recognizing reverence alike, Peter leaves the anklet alone. Before he begins cleaning, he is sure to swipe the sleeves of Laura’s fleece sweater through the blood on the bed and smear it on the arms. The bathing process goes quickly and soon he’s carefully fitting the boy into Rowan’s Nike track pants and underwear and Cora’s Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. He looks ludicrous.

The ordinary clothing does nothing to tame the boy. Even in sleep he looks like a wild thing. 

Laura joins him after not too long, offering him the blister pack of azithromycin antibiotics. 

“What are you going to do with him, uncle?” She asks, scenting him with a shoulder bump.

“Send him back to his father and people,” Peter says and observes his internal reaction from a bird’s eye view. He’s upset. Irrationally. 

“Rach says I can bring him in. Say that I found him on a hike and patched him up. Mom says he won’t be able to say anything different,” Laura says and leans into Peter’s side. 

“Sounds plausible,” Peter shrugs. “Maybe we should wait to give him antibiotics then.”

“What does Derek think? About sending him back to his father?”

“Haven’t asked,” Peter says and pulls his phone out. He pulls up Derek’s contact. 

_ To: Derek _

_ Is the kid safe returning to the Sheriff? _

_ From: Derek _

_ Yeah _

_ To: Derek _

_ Succinct as always, nephew. _

“Tomorrow morning,” Peter says, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “You can take him in after breakfast.”

“What will we do with him in the meantime?”

“I’ll watch him,” Peter says and he runs a hand through the boy’s choppy hair.

“You like him,” Laura teases, elbowing her uncle. “You want to keep your wild, little bunny.”

“Perish the thought,” Peter answers. “I just...latched on to him. Pain recognizing pain. And all that jazz.”

“Ah,” Laura says slowly, her scent inquisitive. She was ever the pragmatic Second. “The throat wound.”

“Yes,” Peter said simply and Laura rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. 

They spoke of a time years ago that Laura had only heard of, when Peter was a pup and his father had a sharp temper and sharper claws. The incident in question had been a torture session disguised as a training exercise. His father had lured him out into the wood, slit his throat and left him gasping in the dirt. 

When Peter has returned, a half day later, his father had given him an approving nod and informed him that as the future Alpha’s Left Hand he would need to lose fear. Fear of dying was the hard part, the rest would come easy.

And so it did. 

Peter had officially challenged him and torn his heart out on the front yard of the Hale House. His grave was tucked into the very back of the cemetery under a peach tree. 

Peter comes back into his body to find his claws embedded in the mattress and the boy watching him with slightly crossed eyes. 

Laura is gone, the door is closed and the boy heaves a heavy sigh and slips back into unconsciousness.

Peter sheathes his claws. 

The rest of the night is uneventful. Peter broods in his chair and Mieczysław sleeps fitfully, calming when Peter rubs a hand over the hollow of his throat and drains any pain. 

When Laura joins him in the med room, garbed in her pre-bloodied hiking outfit, Peter ruffles one last hand through the boy’s hair. 

“Ready?” Laura asks and Peter nods. “Rachel prepped me on an airtight story. I need the travel first aid kit and any gauze Dad used on Me—Mish—Mic—your bunny.”

His bunny. Peter looks down on the boy, ferocious even in sleep and wrapped in Disney paraphernalia. 

“Should we replace the animal skins?” Peter asked and Laura shakes her head. 

“Nope,” she says and tilts her head, ponytail sliding over her shoulder. She adopts a more bubbly facade. “I had the twins’ clothes in my trunk and cleaned him up with baby wipes I had in the car.”

“Our own master of subterfuge,” Peter says with a small smile and she wrinkles her nose, laughing. 

“I suppose it’s time,” she says and Peter nods. 

“Is he still asleep?”

“Yes,” Peter says. “I have been lead to believe shock is exhausting to humans.”

“What isn’t exhausting the humans?” Laura jokes and when someone coughs behind them. Laura whirls around, guilty, and Peter winces internally. 

“Humans are fragile things,” Talia says from the doorway behind them. “Special and fragile things. It makes one consider—“

“Makes _ one _ consider,” Peter intones. 

“—If they are so debilitated by everyday actions, how brave they are to keep going. Facing danger daily and still smiling and being kind to one another. Laura, you and I—and the other Children of the Moon—are blessed with incredible strength and fortitude. We are lucky. Our human counterparts are weaker, yes. But their weakness has given them a bravery we cannot possibly access. Your own family members included.”

“I take your meaning, Alpha,” Laura says, head bowed in deference, and she shoots a meaningful look at Peter.

“Yes,” he agrees, turning to look at her. “We love our squishy homo sapiens.”

Talia gives him a look and Laura elbows him and Mieczysław wakes up behind them with a sharp gasp. 

He flails desperately, rolling off the table away from them and collapsing when he puts weight on his bad foot. Peter pinches the bridge of his nose and then shoos Laura and Talia out the door. 

“Bar the door,” he says and then turns to crouch. 

Mieczysław is pressed into the furthest corner, eyes wide and chest heaving. He skitters himself further in the corner when Peter inches closer and Peter sighs heavily. 

“This would be much simpler if you had stayed unconscious,” Peter tells him. Peter sits on the floor, legs out ahead of him and back against the counter. “We could just dump you off with the other humans and you’d be flashing big, scared eyes at them.”

Mieczysław grows less panicked as time goes on and eventually he is sitting in a mirrored position to Peter. He examines his clothing, running his fingers over the Mickey face on his sweatshirt. He traces the stark white lines on the Nike track pants, peers under the waist to pluck at the elastic of the underwear. 

“Can you understand me?” Peter asks calmly and Mieczysław cranes his head back up. He furrows his brows at Peter and pinches his lips together. “Ground control to Major Tom?”

Mieczysław blinks at him, a strange recognition passing over his face. 

“Oh, Bowie you know. You’re a feral forest monster and the only words you respond to are that of Ziggy Stardust. Naturally. Very well,” Peter shrugs. Then he places a hand on his chest and opens his mouth. “You really made the grade.”

Mieczysław’s entire body jerks at Peter’s singsonging and he peers at him with obvious shock. 

“The papers want to know what shirt you’re wearing,” Peter continues to half-sing-half-speak to him and, around the second tin can line, Mieczysław has scooted to within two yards of Peter. 

“Hello, bunny,” he says and Mieczysław shakes his head in frustration. “Can you understand me?”

Mieczysław grows still, then suddenly reaches out across their gap and prods the sole of Peter’s Italian loafer. 

“It’s a shoe,” Peter says dryly and Mieczysław flicks a sneer towards him. “Oh, you already know? Pardon me for not knowing your educational gaps.”

The boy crawls a little closer and runs his fingers over Peter’s argyle socks, the line of his ankle bone. 

“I’m the first person you’ve been up close and personal with in awhile,” Peter observes and Mieczysław ignores him in favor of pushing his pant leg up and plucking his leg hair. “That hurts, you pest.”

Mieczysław turns his attention to Peter’s face, reaches out and runs his fingertips along the stubble rasping Peter’s jaw. 

“Hello,” Peter says softly and Mieczysław’s eyes flick to meet his. They’re impossibly colored, honey and light , and oh-so guarded. He peers up into Peter’s face, less than a foot away. Fingers brush Peter’s chin and gloss over his lips, feather across his cheek bone and the bridge of his nose. “If you understand me, smile.”

Mieczysław sneers again, pressing his fingers to the hollows of Peter’s cheeks and baring his teeth with an amount of sarcasm Peter didn’t realize could be utilized. 

“Fantastic,” Peter says even as Mieczysław holds rough fingers to his lips.”We want to take you to a hospital. Get your ankle fixed up.”

Mieczysław raises an eyebrow, dips his head towards his wrapped ankle. He folds his arms around his stomach and bends over them, squishing himself into a little ball. He looks up at Peter with derision. 

“Fix it completely,” Peter amends and Mieczysław does a tiny shrug. “Is that alright?”

Mieczysław doesn’t respond to that, stone faced and completely still. 

“You won’t be able to protect yourself if you have a lame foot,” Peter says and there’s a spark of curiosity in Mieczysław’s face. “If your foot is destroyed, you can be hunted easier.”

This logic does little to coax Mieczysław back to communication but he does stand on his good foot. He looks at the door and back at Peter, clearly waiting. 

“Well, we can’t have you hobbling around,” Peter says and he stands himself. Mieczysław flinches, then visibly steels himself. “I’m going to pick you up.”

Mieczysław shakes his head, a frown puckering his features. Peter rolls his eyes. Then offers his back. 

Mieczysław takes the clue, gripping Peter’s shoulder and hoisting himself up. Talia opens the door as they approach and she barely hides her surprise. 

“Onward, steed,” Laura says from behind a giggle and the four of them make their way out to Laura’s car. They put Mieczysław in the backseat, Peter begins to buckle him but the boy bats his hands away and buckles himself. 

Peter watches them go with a strange, twisting sensation settling in his stomach. Talia places a hand on the nape of his neck, leans into him for a brief moment. 

“You may check on him occasionally,” Talia murmurs. “More if you don’t let him see you.”

“Alpha,” Peter says in agreement. “I’m going to dispose of the bear trap now. See if I can’t locate anymore.”

“Laura is going to tell them she found him in the wood at the base of Strawberry Rock. Take someone with you when you plant it,” she says and then heads back into the house. She turns then, looks over her shoulder. “Sleep if you can.”

Peter watches her walk back into the house.

***

Peter doesn’t check on him. At least, not physically. 

At first, there’s a multitude of news reports. 

_ Medical Resident of Beacon Hills Hospital Finds Missing Boy. Long-Gone Son of Sheriff Rescued in Hale Preserve. Local Hero Saves Missing Child. _Etcetera. 

The same picture of Laura smiling awkwardly beside a teary-eyed Sheriff in all the newspapers. 

Peter decides to move forward. No checking up. No following up. Clean break. 

The weakness the boy brought to the surface was inexcusable and it lingered in an unbearable way. The feeling of being a small, helpless creature who pissed blood in the long hours it took for his bruised kidneys to heal. The urge to flinch from quick motions and loud noises. 

He feels fourteen and so, so _ scared. _

He hates it. 

He hears occasional stories from others. Derek says the Sheriff has taken a sabbatical and his deputy, Tara Graeme, has taken up as interim Sheriff. Laura says that Mieczysław spent almost a month in the hospital, she checked on him whenever her shifts allowed. And the nurses and doctors are having much less success than Peter had at producing results. 

Peter does not say, “You must be broken to see the edges of another and to know how to avoid them.”

He, instead, lies and says, “Keep us updated. I know we all have a horse in this race.”

Clean break. 

He is keeping himself busy, running the woods and prodding Cora and Rowan into a slightly more rigorous routine. Once Laura ascends to Alpha, statistically, a sibling becomes the Left Hand. 

Derek is out, a morally-adept Boy Scout through and through. Cora and Rowan are a little more wiley. 

They’re currently tracking a Target gift card Peter has hidden in the preserve. He’s left several red herrings at various points. He’s listening to them thunder through the underbrush and makes a point to tie the next gift card to a doe. They’ll learn stealth one way or another. 

But then, he hears it. Something dashing through the snow. Bi-pedal. Uneven gait. Bunny heart. 

He firmly tamps down the lurch of nausea he feels. _ Tries _to tamp down. 

Through some undeniable intervention, he carefully extrapolates where the boy will end up and heads towards that point. They intersect in a small clearing, dotted with holly berries and errant patches of sunshine on the snow. Mieczysław stops short when he spots Peter, dropping to a crouch and baring his teeth. Peter dutifully ignores the spark of excitement the feral boy brings to his chest. 

Mieczysław looks exhausted, bruises under his eyes and a wan look to his skin. His foot is in a plastic boot and his hair shorn to a uniform length. 

“Hello, bunny,” he says, voice unfortunately full of mirth. “I can’t imagine you’re supposed to be out here.”

Mieczysław makes a repeated, sharp motion with his fingers. First and middle finger drawn to his thumb in rapid snaps over and over. He shakes his head as well, baring his teeth still. 

“‘No’,” Cora says suddenly from behind him. 

“No?” Peter asks and she steps a little closer.

“He’s signing. He’s saying ‘no’,”she says and glances at Peter. “Is that him? Is that—are you Stiles?”

Mieczysław’s head jerks up and he’s standing in a flash. He limps closer to Cora, peering at her from a face screwed up in concentration. 

“It is,” Rowan says from the other side of the clearing. “From elementary.”

“How do you know he’s signing?” Peter asks and watches Mieczysław—_ Stiles— _turn to face Rowan. 

“There’s a deaf YouTuber I watch,” Cora says and she wraps her arms around herself. “I know a little. Like a baby amount.”

“Stiles,” Peter says, hungry to understand, and the boy whirls to look at him again. His eyes are teary and he nods. “Your name is Stiles.”

The boy seems to wilt on his feet, a puppet with cut strings, and Peter crosses the little clearing to collect him. Stiles is barefoot aside from the boot and his toes are cherry-red from the cold. In a mimicry of their initial meeting, he allows Peter to scoop him up and cover him with a coat. His head rests solidly on Peter’s shoulder. He’s shaking like a leaf. 

“Did either of you get the card?” Peter asks and the twins nod, Rowan brandishes the red card. 

“Rowan shoved me out of the tree and my wrist had to—uh—feel better before I could climb back up,” Cora says, glancing at Stiles. Rowan shrugs and they start walking back towards the house. 

“You never know if you’ll need to climb one-handed,” Peter says loftily. “But points removed for blood thirst, Rowan.”

“Oh, come on,” Rowan groans and Peter frowns at him. 

“Knowing when to stay your hand is just as important,” he says and Rowan rolls his eyes but nods.

“You two knew Stiles,” Peter says after a moment and the twins nod in unison. 

“Yes,” they say. “He was friends with—“

“—Rowan.”

“—Me.”

“That year that we were separated in fifth grade,” they finish. 

“So, you knew him well,” Peter summarizes. Distantly, he remembers the fits they had thrown upon receiving their class lists. 

“Kinda,” Cora says. “He has another friend that he spent recess with. He just would hang with Rowan in class.”

“Scott was cool,” Rowan says. This is high praise for Rowan. “When Stiles disappeared, he and his mom moved away.”

“Suspicious,” Peter says absently and Stiles makes a quiet sound. Peter looks down and the boy is watching him blearily, brow furrowed. “Perhaps not.”

“Who did hurt you?” Cora asks, blunt and crisp. “Was it a stranger?”

They all hold their breath a bit, waiting for Stiles to reply. Slowly, he raises one hand out from under the coat. 

No, he signs. 

“So, you knew them,” Rowan chimes in. “Knew them well?”

Stiles slides his hand back under the coat and closes his eyes. 

“So,” Rowan starts. 

“Yes,” Cora finishes. 

“Simmer down, twins,” Peter chides, a well worn phrase. “Find your manners. A Left Hand doesn’t badger trauma victims.”

“Why haven’t you figured out who hurt him?” Cora asks and Peter exhales through his nose. 

“‘Leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of knowledge, twins’,” Rowan parrots in an unflattering impression of Peter. 

Stiles snorts and they all look at him. He turns a smug smile into Peter’s chest. 

They summit the sloping lawn that meets the Hale House and once again Peter calls for Talia from the porch. She opens the door, a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. 

“Hello. Peter. Twins. Little bunny,” she greets them all in turn, gesturing for them to enter. 

Peter takes them to the sitting room, settling Stiles in a pile of pillows and flitting a throw over his legs. He’s wearing a grey pair of sweatpants and a Beacon Hills Police Department t-shirt. His arms are icy and the end of his nose is a pink color that makes Peter want to nip it. 

Instead, Peter sits at the end of the sofa and drags Stiles’ feet into his lap, scooting the boy down the couch a little. He knows the best way to fight frostbite, from experience. 

He folds his hands around the cold feet, rubbing them vigorously, and only when he hears the twins go upstairs and Talia find Derek in the kitchen does he peek over at Stiles.

Stiles is now ruddy-cheeked, mouth agape and eyebrows cocked in confusion. He’s propped up on his elbows, chin nearly on his chest, watching Peter. 

“We’re going to call your father,” Peter tells him and Stiles rolls his eyes. “No sass. Where were you going?”

Stiles makes a rude face at him, clearly saying, How should I tell you?

“Ah,” Peter hums then looks around for a notepad and pen. There’s one helpfully on the side table and he proffers it to Stiles. “Illuminate me.”

Stiles regards the pen like it might bite him. 

“Just take it,” Peter says and waggles the pen. “You do know how? Correct? When do they teach children to write?”

Stiles snorts and snags the pen and notepad then shoots another look at Peter. He wiggles his toes against Peter’s hands. 

“I can take a clue,” Peter laughs and resumes warming Stiles’ feet. 

He watches Stiles out of the corner of his eye, the boy looks irritated. Eyebrows up, mouth slanted downwards. 

Stiles spends a while writing, scribbling things out and eventually he tosses the notebook back towards Peter. 

_ going home maybe flood is gone do not belong here _

The writing is hesitant at first, shaky and clumsy. Peter traces his fingers over the words. 

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your home is here,” Peter says. “Did something happen at home? To drive you back into the woods?”

Stiles nods and reaches out, gesturing for the notepad. 

_ dad wants to know who did it _

“And it’s a secret because the person who did it is known to you both?”

Stiles nods. 

“I see,” Peter says. “And it’s someone close to you both.”

Stiles hesitates. Nods again. Peter holds his tongue, he can hear Derek heading towards them.

“Peter. Stiles,” Derek says, walking into the sitting room. He has on his sparkling smile, pretty like a lion fish’s spines. “Do you remember me, Stiles? I’m Deputy Hale. We met at the hospital.”

Stiles nods and draws his feet out of Peter’s lap and his knees to his chest. He pushes the notepad away. 

“Your dad loves you, Stiles,” Derek continues, eyes darting to Peter and then the notebook. He crouches between them and looks up at Stiles. “He’d want to know who hurt you. He’d want to keep you safe.”

Stiles keeps his head down. 

“I’m sure he thinks he wants to know,” Peter drawls and Derek rolls his eyes. Stiles peeks at him.

Stiles grabs the notepad suddenly, surprising them both. 

_ I am safe they are dead _

“Derek,” Peter interrupts softly and his nephew pivots towards him. “Have you contacted his father?”

“I’ll call him,” Derek says and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He pulls a number from his contacts and puts the phone on speakerphone after he dials. 

“This is Stilinski,” the Sheriff says curtly. 

“Hi, John. We found Stiles. Out in the preserve,” Derek says and John exhales slowly. 

“He okay?”

“A little cold but he’s unharmed,” Derek answers and Stiles scrawls something on the notepad. “He says—uh—he’s sorry.”

“What do you mean he says?”

“He wrote it,” Derek says and taps his fingers on the page. 

“He wouldn’t even look at a pencil when I offered it,” John sighs. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon.”

“We’ll be here,” Derek and answers and they hang up. 

“You should tell him,” Peter says and Stiles snarls, a wet gasp bubbling in his throat and Peter pulls on his toes until he pouts. 

“Stiles, why don’t you want to tell him? Wouldn’t you want to know?” Derek asks. 

No, Stiles signs and then he throws his hands up in a sharp jerk. He reaches over into Derek’s face and signs it over and over. 

Derek frowns, batting Stiles hand away and that seems to spur Stiles into movement. He scampers upright and rolls over the back of the sofa, his boot thumps against the ground, and he makes a mad dash for the front door. 

Peter sighs, standing slowly and turning to watch Stiles run smack into Talia. Rachel is behind her with the baby of the house, Ada, in her arms. Stiles rears back, peering around Talia at the baby with a strong scent of curiosity. 

He turns back to look at Peter, making a pointedly amazed face at him and Peter crosses the room and gathers Ada from Rachel. 

“Her name is Adaline,” Rachel says and she leans a shoulder against the door jam. “She’s the littlest Hale.”

Stiles follows Ada, turning and pressing in close to Peter’s arm. He reaches out, pausing and glancing up at Peter for permission before touching her little toes. He breathes out a tiny gasp when her toes flex and Peter pulls one of Ada’s feet up to his mouth and blows a raspberry on it. She smiles widely and sticks her fingers in her mouth. 

Stiles starts, wide eyes darting between the two, and then he’s eagerly pressing his mouth to Ada’s toes and blowing. She shrieks, chubby hands waving, and Stiles mouth falls open into a grin. 

Baby, he mouths and Peter suppresses the smile curving his mouth. 

“You’re a natural,” Rachel says and she’s joined their trio. She brushes a lock of hair off Ada’s forehead and then, after a beat, does the same to Stiles. “Maybe you’ll have to babysit for me.”

Stiles’ eyes widen even further and his mouth falls open. 

“She’s serious,” Peter says and Stiles shakes his head. “She is. Rachel can tell a good babysitter from a mile away.”

“I’m an excellent judge of character,” she says and flicks her glossy blonde hair over her shoulder. “And I can tell you’re a good boy.”

Stiles screws up his face for a second, then hobbles over to the notepad and writes something. He springs back over and shoves the notepad at Peter. 

_ how many of you are there _

Peter laughs a little at that. 

“Lots,” he says. “Myself, of course. Talia and her husband Caleb. Their children. Derek. Laura and the twins. Our sister Rachel and her two children. You’ve met Ada. Marcella is at Girl Scouts with Laura. There are other Hales in the surrounding areas but the majority of the cousins settled in some of the more metropolitan areas.”

Stiles looks impressed and he reaches out to touch Ada’s toes again. 

“If you sit down, you can hold her,” Rachel offers. Stiles flies to the sofa and practically vibrates. 

Peter instructs him on how to hold her and perches beside him, settles Ada onto Stiles’ lap and stays close. One arm around the back of the couch and another under Ada’s bottom and, by default, Stiles’ arm. 

And that is how the Sheriff finds them. 

“He looks happy,” John says softly. He’s talking to Derek, one hand braces on the door jam. Peter politely ignores him. “Actually happy.”

“Sheriff,” Talia says, arms folded and face warm. “We are always happy for another pair of hands here. Stiles is welcome to visit us if we’re at home.”

“And someone is always home,” Rachel adds. 

“We can’t impose,” John says and Talia clicks her tongue. 

“Not to be...preachy, Sheriff. But the Hales are the founders of Beacon Hills. We have protected it since it’s birth. Our civic duty is to the people of this land. Your son included. _ Yourself _ included,” Talia says. 

“I don’t know what to say,” John says and Peter continues to politely ignore him. And the tears salting the air. 

“You say thank you,” Rachel says and they break into laughter. “Seriously, bring him around. Ada loves Stiles.”

“Stiles,” the Sheriff says. “I’d forgotten he wanted to be called that.”

Stiles looks up then, stilling at the sight of his father. 

“Shall I take Ada?” Peter offers and Stiles shakes his head, folds over and leans his forehead on Ada’s. “I suppose she is a useful shield.”

“Son,” the Sheriff says. “I’m happy you’re safe.”

Stiles glances up at him, nods and then leans back down towards Ada. She makes a happy baby noise and reaches for his face.

“Would you want to visit the Hales again?”

Stiles nods, yesyesyesyes.

“Okay, that’s—that’s fine,” John says. “Can I sit? See the little tyke? Ada?”

Yes, Stiles nods and the Sheriff takes a seat. 

Peter makes to move but Stiles leans minutely against him. 

He stays. 

***

The boy visits infrequently at first. Then, spurred by the twins fascination, a few times a week.

He stoops like an animal the first few weeks, crouched and quick. Peering around corners and jumping when someone has the nerve to be there. Peter hates him because he hates looking at himself. 

He wonders if that’s how he was towards the end, when Father grew braver in his tortures. 

The majority of Stiles’ time with them is spent with the twins or Ada. Occasionally, he and Laura go on hikes or he pesters Derek to read him from Derek's depressing foreign books.

Stiles seems to be able to sense the discomfort he brings out in Peter. He doesn’t approach him outright, simply trails behind Peter like a spectral vision of his own self-loathing. 

Now, Peter is reading in his office and there are little whiskey eyes burning a hole into the side of his face.

“What do you want, ghoul?” Peter asks and Stiles takes it as an invitation to crawl out from under side table he’d been watching Peter from. 

Stiles signs something, frustration crossing his face when Peter merely raises his eyebrows in response. 

Stiles creeps closer, up onto the couch and nearer to Peter. He pulls a stubby pencil out of his pocket and a scrap of paper. Writes on it. Shoves it at Peter. 

_ Do you like movies _

“Not particularly,” Peter says and gestures pointedly with his book. He’s reading a book that scratches all of his old wounds. He takes a maudlin and masochistic pleasure at reading works that mirror his various traumas. The twisted, obsessive romance between the books’ teenaged main character and an older man are something from his memories and he holds that ache sacred. 

He watches Stiles mouth the title, _ Running With Scissors _. He points to something on the books’ cover. A little red starburst, the text within proclaiming ‘Now A Major Motion Picture’. 

“And?”

_ A movie _

“Here’s the deal, _ Mowgli _. I’ll look and see if this movie is on our streaming apps. If it is, we can even watch it. And then you will leave me alone for a month and stop following me around like a bad taste,” Peter says and Stiles squishes two words on the only available space on his paper scrap. 

_ A week _

“Deal,” Peter says and he sets down his book and picks up the remote control. 

Unfortunately, it is on Amazon Prime.

An additional unforeseen issue; Peter is ill-prepared for his triggers to be laid bare before Stiles. It’s one thing to read of predators privately in one’s own head and another to sit beside a stranger and watch it happen. 

Neil and August fall back into bed and Peter squeezes the remote until it splinters in his fingers. Stiles jumps and fixes Peter with a sharp look. 

What? He mouths and Peter climbs to his feet, hands shaking. He starts when Stiles takes his hand, but allows the boy to unfurl his fingers. A piece of the remote, a skinny dagger of plastic, is driven through the heel of his palm.

Stiles looks up at him, bites his lip and yanks the plastic free. It’s oozes blood and Peter suppresses the healing ability. The scene continues on the TV and Peter turns towards it, chin down and lip curling in barely contained rage. 

“Off,” he seethes. “Turn it off!”

Stiles scampers over to the TV, feeling along the bottom for a button. 

“On the side! It’s on the left side, you little fool,” Peter snaps and Stiles whirls to face him. 

His mouth is a harsh scarlet slash and he jabs his middle finger at Peter in an unmistakable message. Then he leaves Peter’s office. 

Overwhelmed--seeing red--Peter picks up the nearest item, an obsidian slab he uses for decor and hurls it at the screen. It lodges firmly into the screen, sending geometric panels of red and green and white across it and Peter slumps back on his couch. 

He is unsure how much time passes before his doorway is darkened. He turns toward the door, lost in a flood of memories and blinks back to lucidity. 

Stiles is in his doorway with their first aid kit in hand. He approaches slowly, clearly prepared to pinwheel on the spot and dash back out the door. Peter waves him in and slides further into his couch, rubbing his unbloodied hand over his face. Stiles kneels on the floor beside his knee and opens to kit, pulling out a bundle of gauze and bandage scissors. 

Peter offers him his hand wordlessly and Stiles begins wrapping it, forgoing any cleaning process. It makes Peter laugh for some reason-- the fragments of motions the feral thing goes through versus the gaps in his knowledge. 

“Who wrapped your palm?” Peter asks and Stiles ignores him in favor of winding far too much gauze around Peter’s hand. “When you were just a normal human boy-- Who knelt beside you and wrapped your wounds?”

Stiles stays quiet and begins resolutely securing the gauze with what is perhaps a half-yard of tape.

“You’re right to ignore me,” Peter says. “I’m unbearable like this. Maudlin as a French film.”

Stiles shrugs, packs the kit back up. He stands then, thumps over to Peter’s desk in his boot and scrawls something on a post-it note. He delivers it back to Peter and crawls up on the back of the sofa, bends over his knees until he’s got his sternum presses to them. 

_ Didn’t finish the movie. No deal _

“Fine,” Peter says and Stiles nods. “I suppose I’ll permit you to shadow me.”

Stiles nods and that is that.


	2. a particular dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is a sentence where Peter self-harms to ground himself in this chapter. It’s towards the end of the scene where he and Talia speak. There is also further mention of the abuse Peter experienced from his father.

Over the next few months, Stiles becomes a regular fixture in the Hale House. A mad creature with terrible manners and a deep affinity for each Hale. His boot comes off and he becomes much harder to track idly. Stealing cookies for Marcella with dirty fingers, reading comics and practicing ASL with the twins, twirling Ada in slow circles until she falls asleep. 

He stays wild, baring his teeth when any of them approach him too quietly and forgoing eating utensils completely. 

Peter finds it annoyingly fascinating. Where he became a cringing hound, Stiles has blossomed into a mad one. 

He wonders which is better. 

Talia allows them to keep their wild human gladly. She encourages the twins to collect him from the Sheriff’s and Laura sits in on some of his medical appointments at the Sheriff’s blessing. 

The Sheriff is barred from the investigation into Stiles’ disappearance but all information Derek has is given over dinner at the Hales. They puzzle through theories late into the night. 

They dance around the answer, minds incapable of going to that dark truth. Peter sits on his knowledge and envies them.

One of the guest rooms is unofficially gifted to the Sheriff. Stiles refuses to sleep in a bed, preferring to stalk the house and rifle through their things in the middle of the night. He sleeps in sporadic bursts; curled up in Peter’s armchair, in the hammock with the twins while they study, under Ada’s crib when she naps, the bed of Derek’s truck as he changes the oil. 

Peter believes Talia to be fond of Stiles. He receives her Mona Lisa smiles more often than any of the other children. She pulls him close to clean dirt smudges from his nose and sends him off with food that he squirrels away into caches. 

One such cache is in Peter’s office, a vase that took on a peculiar smell. When Peter brought himself to investigate, there was a collection of nuts and hard heels of bread. Stiles had been distaught for days after he emptied it. 

At the behest of the twins, he’d bribed Stiles back into a good mood with a series of increasingly expensive gifts. First, a new comic book. Then a pair of suede slippers. A sarcastic red sweater that had Laura giggling whenever she saw it. The winning token had been a hug, freely given in the dense wood where none of the others could see. 

Stiles had leaned into, a weed rooting for sunshine. He’d made small noises against Peter’s neck and nuzzled his nose into Peter’s hair. It had opened a floodgate of Stiles’ improper personal boundaries. 

Wolves are quite tactical creatures compared to humans so Stiles’ many embraces left the Hales smelling happy and sated. Peter tried to explain that people outside the family might not be so receptive and Stiles had waved him away. 

_ All my people are Hales _ , he’s scribbled on a napkin. 

“One day they won’t be,” Peter says, raising an eyebrow.

Stiles blows a raspberry at him and crawls under the table to sit by him and steal his pizza toppings. 

***

Peter jackknives awake, claws out and eyes burning blue before he realizes what woke him. 

Stiles is creeping onto his bed, frozen with his mouth in an ‘o’ like a slapstick TV character. Peter forced himself to shake off the fog of anger and sleep, crawls out of the bed. 

“What are you doing?” Peter asks and Stiles shrugs, slithering off the bed to stand before him. “Get out.”

I want to stay, Stiles signs with tiny motions, practically curled over his hands. I want to sleep here.

“No,” Peter says with a bitter laugh. “Not a chance. Get out.”

I feel safe here, Stiles signs with his eyes on the ceiling. He continues, Safe with you. 

“Do you know what any of them would say?” Peter asks, gesturing towards the floor. “If I let some faunlet crawl into my bed after I haven’t had a single person in this space outside Pack? “

Please, Stiles asks and his eyes are beginning to water. He blinks them away and turns his head, Just for tonight?

“Stiles, no,” Peter says firmly. He feels like his head it going to pop off and dragging his hands through his hair does nothing to relieve the pressure. “You can’t.”

I’m tired, Stiles signs. I’ll sleep with you. I’m always so tired. 

“Go, Stiles,” Peter snaps. 

Stiles bares his teeth at Peter, cursing him wordlessly with big, dramatic motions and storms towards the door. He pulls it shut behind him with a cacophonous slam and Peter fights the urge to through his bed out the window. He gets back into bed, yanking the blanket up to his ears and huffs out a breath. 

He rolls after a moment, punches his pillow and growls under his breath. He settles for a moment and then he hears it. 

A heartbeat at the base of his staircase. 

He crams his pillow over his head, tries to block out the steady lub-lub of Stiles’ heart. He fails. 

He can wait him out. Stiles will give in and crawl off to do whatever Stiles things he does when no one is watching. Peter will wait him out.

The minutes tick by and Stiles’ heartbeat slows, Peter realizes with a pang of guilt that Stiles is falling asleep on his stairs. 

Peter understands feeling vulnerable in sleep. 

Peter gets it.

He understands finding solace in another, stronger person. He hates it--but he gets it. 

He’s rolling out of bed in the next thought and crossing his room. He hesitates with his hand on the door. 

It’s just sleep. Peter’s making it strange. It’s unorthodox, sure. But he’s making it suspicious. 

He’d let the other pups in. 

If Stiles is inappropriate, he’ll leave and go downstairs.

He opens the door. 

Watches Stiles jerk awake and smack his face on the wall. Watches his limbs pin-wheel and settle. Ignores the flutter in his chest--the warmth and the guilt and self-realization Stiles forces out of him. 

While Peter has been musing about his own motives, Stiles has folded his arms over his knees and he’s a miserable, little pile at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Come on,” Peter says. “Before I change my mind.”

Stiles stands, obviously annoyed, but he trudges up the stairs and crawls onto the foot of Peter’s bed. He sprawls out, feet hanging off one side and his face on his folded arms. Peter stands before him, one hand on his hip, and the other scratching his stomach. 

“You want to sleep at my feet?” Peter asks finally. “What if I kick?”

Then I bite, Stiles says and clacks his teeth. 

Peter does not deign this with an answer. He, instead, gets back in bed and mulishly stretches out so his feet are pressed against Stiles’ side. The boy softens then, eels up the bed a little so he’s curved around Peter’s legs. 

Stiles bunches up the bit of duvet he’s on so it’s a makeshift pillow and Peter sighs but says nothing. It’s a matter of moments before Stiles is drifting off again, his heartbeat slowing beside Peter this time. Once Peter is sure Stiles’ is asleep, he strokes his fingers over his buzz cut. 

Just once. 

***

Stiles sleeps with Peter most nights he’s at the Hale House. Some nights he does his creepy-crawler routine and ghosts around the house, silent and nosy. But if he isn’t digging through their mail pile or rummaging through the summer clothing collection in the basement, he’s sprawled on Peter’s bed. 

Peter refuses to think about it in the daylight. 

Their nights are for the stars alone. No one would understand here, in the naked light of day. 

***

  
  


They’re having meatloaf the first time Talia challenges Stiles. He’s pressing his fingers into the mashed potatoes, ready to scoop them up when Talia clears her throat at him. He peers at her curiously and she raises her eyebrows at the fork beside his plate.

He squashes up his face and lifts a finger full of potatoes to his mouth, chewing with his mouth open. 

He meets Talia’s eyes and the betas cringe simultaneously. The humans, Rachel and Caleb, exchange looks.

“Stiles,” Cora chides and tries to make Stiles hold a fork. 

No, he signs.

“ _ Stiles, _ ” Rowan hisses and he reaches over Cora to try and press a fork into Stiles’ hand. 

No, he signs with an irritated flick of his wrist. 

“At my table, we use forks,” Talia says, chin firm. 

Peter can read Stiles’ thoughts by the mean expression on his face. 

_ Then I guess I’ll have to leave your table. _

Sure enough, Stiles shoves back from the table, chair legs scraping loudly. He storms off, the front door slams and the Hales breath a collective sigh. 

“I’ve got him,” Peter says and Talia waves him onwards. 

“My foot is down, Peter. Forks at the table,” she says. “If he returns, he must comply.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Peter murmurs and heads towards the door. He stops to pick up Stiles’ boots from the shoe rack, the boy never fails to leave his shoes behind. 

Stiles isn’t far. He’s a few yards into the woods whacking a tree with a large stick. Peter lets him go until he splinters the wood, then walks within earshot. 

Stiles whirls on him, teeth bared and face red. His face is veiny with rage, throat corded with tension and hands balled into fists. 

“Forks are useful,” Peter offers and Stiles waves his arms at him violently, kicks the leaves with socked feet. Peter tosses his boots toward him. “Fighting with my boss is a bad move. She’s the boss for a reason.”

Stiles mouths something in the dark, Peter looks away so he can pretend he didn’t see.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he says. “Come back in the house and write it.”

Give me your phone, Stiles storms over and signs into his face and Peter sighs.  _ Give me your phone.  _

Peter relents, of course, and Stiles pulls up the text-to-speech app they found. 

“Werewolf,” a robotic voice chirps. Peter winces. “Werewolf-alpha-you-wolf-liar.”

“Stiles,” Peter says and Stiles presses the speak button again. His phone disparages his species and honor again and Peter rests his face in his palm. “Put your shoes on.”

“Expletive-boots-liar-liar-liar,” Stiles writes and Peter feels his wolf wilt. 

“Please, the boots,” he tries again and Stiles drops the phone in the leaves and picks up his boots. 

And hucks them further into the woods. 

“Spiteful fool,” Peter snaps and Stiles glares at him. “Why can’t you let it go?”

Stiles waves his arms, Peter can smell the angry tears prickling his eyes and the fight fades from him. 

“Stiles,” he says and the boy sneers at him. “Please.”

Then, Stiles turns and runs. 

Peter considers leaving him, just for a moment, then shakes his head. 

He chases. 

Stiles is raging now in big, gasping sounds ringing from his ruined throat. Peter could track him by his sorrowful smell alone. Soon, Peter overtakes Stiles and he grabs his arm, careful not to squeeze too tight. 

Stiles stills immediately, turning into Peter like he can’t help himself and Peter lets him. Stiles is a hairs’ breadth shorter than him and Peter has to stifle the urge to hold him. 

“You’re right,” Peter whispers. “You clever, wicked thing. You’re right.”

Stiles nods, making a miserable sniffing sound against the side of Peter’s neck. 

“We don’t mean to be dishonest,” Peter says. “But there are humans who would have us driven to extinction. Secrecy is a cloak worn by all wolves.”

Stiles snorts at that, pulling back and Peter fails to resist the urge to brush tears from his eyes. 

“Yes, we have already established I’m overly dramatic,” Peter says and Stiles offers him a watery smile. 

Mother, he signs suddenly.

“What?” Peter asks, thrown. “Talia?”

My mother, Stiles clarifies then he tilts his chin back and bares the scar on his throat. My mother.

“She…,” Peter trails off, rubbing his thumb over the rope-like scar. “Your mother tried to kill you.”

Yes, Stiles nods and Peter stamps down the sharp bleat of fear in his chest. 

“My father—,” Peter starts, faltering. He swallows, feeling his eyes burn blue, and Stiles interrupts him to step his bare feet on to Peter’s shoes. “Your feet. You little idiot.”

Stiles gives him a withering look and then climbs him like a monkey until Peter’s giving him a piggyback. He digs his bony heels into Peter’s sides and Peter shakes his head helplessly. 

“Now that the—hmm—wolf’s out of the bag,” Peter says and Stiles flicks his ear in displeasure. 

For that, Peter declines to give warning. He digs his feet into the dirt then he’s off like a bullet. 

He surges all his wolf energy into bolting over the logs and hills, taking dramatic leaps and turns. Stiles’ breath in his ear is happy and loud and his heart is racing. 

Peter runs faster. 

***

A notepad thwacks on the ground before Peter. He’s sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, on his side with his head on his hand and Ada practicing crawling beside him. She makes a frustrated noise and reaches for the notepad. Peter glances at it. 

_ Dad wants me to go to SCHOOL _

School is underlined and drawn over in a heavy hand. 

“And?” Peter drawls and Stiles flops down beside Peter, leaning his head on Peter’s hip and drumming his fingers in front of Ada. He picks up the pencil and writes in small letters.

_ Don’t want to _

“Why not? You could make friends at school,” Peter says and Stiles is writing before Peter finished his sentence. 

_ I have friends _

“Friends outside the pack,” Peter amends and Stiles tosses the pencil down and leans back to rub the side of his face into Peter’s ribs. Peter lays a hand on Stiles’ head and Stiles deflates with a sigh. 

“A new school?” Cora asks from the doorway and Rowan elbows passed her to lay on the other side of Ada. Cora trails after him and sits cross-legged with them. 

“Or BH High?” Rowan asks. 

“We’re going to graduate in a few weeks,” the twins say and Stiles groans and slides closer to the floor. He edges up so he’s in between Ada and Peter and reaches over to play with Ada’s fingers. 

“Stiles,” Peter says and he writes on the notepad. 

_ new _

“Where at?” Peter asks, mind racing. Out of the area? Away?

The twins exchange a look, nervous instinctively at Peter’s heart ticking faster. 

_ Don’t know. Special school with EXTRA SUPPORT _

“It’s always impressive how many ways you find to show sarcasm,” Cora says with a snicker and Rowan flicks a claw out to scratch through Stiles’ words. 

“We won’t let you go,” he says simply. “You’re pack. Ours. If it’s far away then we’ll just follow.”

_ Not pack _

“Uh—yes. You are,” Cora says snottily. “You’ve been pack since that first time. With Ada.”

Stiles looks at Peter, eyes questioning. 

Pack? He signs and Peter nods. 

“Pack,” he agrees and Stiles sits up then. He hunches over his knees, drawing them close to his chest and hides his face into them. The scent of tears bursts from him and the twins whine in the back of their throats. 

“Stiles,” Peter says and sits up as well. He runs a hand over the still-bony spurs of Stiles’ spine and lets the boy cry it out. 

The twins, allergic to any strong emotions, collect Ada and head into the kitchen with their mom. Peter listens to them recount what just happened and her gentle voice explaining that tact is necessary for any Left Hands. 

“Stiles,” he says plainly and Stiles looks at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You’re overwhelmed.”

Yes, Stiles nods. 

“Are you upset that you’re Pack?”

No, he shakes his head. Then, he signs it, No.

“Good,” Peter says and pats the boy’s shoulder. “Because I think if you tried to leave us, we’d have to eat you.”

What, Stiles asks with a watery grin. 

“You know. ‘I’ll eat you up I love you so’,” Peter recites with an indulgent smile. 

I love you, Stiles signs. The silly grin has fallen from his face and the energy in the mood shifts crisply. He looks rueful, tired and soft. 

“We love you,” Peter says, playing at willful ignorance and Stiles shakes his head. 

I love you, he flashes again. Then he points and his finger connects with Peter’s chest. You. 

“Stiles,” Peter says helplessly, mind grinding to a halt. 

Stiles reaches over to take Peter’s hand and raises it to his mouth, presses a slow kiss to Peter’s knuckles. His eyes fall closed and he kisses his hand again, quicker this time. Then he turns his face to rest his cheek on Peter’s hand and Peter holds his breath. 

Stiles opens his eyes again and Peter is unable to do anything but meet his gaze. Those Tennessee whiskey eyes. 

“You’re a menace,” Peter says and takes his hand back. “Let’s not have a moment, Stiles. You’re pack. And  _ we  _ love you. Like family.”

Liar, Stiles signs almost kindly. He rolls his eyes and exhales slowly. 

“Peter,” Talia says from the doorway with Ada on her hip. “The twins will take Stiles back to his father. We need to have a discussion.”

“Alpha,” Peter says with a nod and he stands, brushing imaginary lint off his pants. He doesn’t look at Stiles again, just heads directly to his office and uncaps his wolfsbane-infused mead. He pours himself a few fingers and sits heavily in one of the armchairs. 

Talia joins him shortly, Ada back with Rachel, and sits beside him. 

“How long will you let Father dictate your life?” She asks and he flinches, mead sloshing on to his hand. 

“What?” He asks, genuinely bewildered. 

“You’ve  _ never  _ taken a mate. Or left the House for longer than a weekend trip. Or pursued your dreams or—or your career. And I know why,” she says and sit forward in her seat. Her eyes burn Alpha red and he winces back. “Because he told you that you aren’t supposed to.”

“Talia—,” he starts and she holds up a hand. 

“He twisted your brain and made you into a little machine,” she says. “A soldier. And I thought you were getting better after all these years. I thought challenging him would be enough to fix you. But I was wrong. You’ve hidden exactly how deep his claws punctured you. And you’re still following his psychotic rules decades later.”

“That’s not fair,” Peter says and she shakes her head. 

“It is  _ not  _ my job to be fair,” she says. “What rule are you breaking by taking a vacation?”

“I—,” Peter starts to defend himself and she growls at him. Honesty jumps in his chest. “I can’t split focus. The pack as a unit is the first priority. I can’t put myself ahead of you all.” 

“He was insane, Peter. He was a bitter fool who took his anger out on his own pup. His anger at Aunt Molly for being the one who ascended. And I was blind to it, Peter. I didn’t understand what he did to you. And I am eternally sorry. But he was wrong. The entire time. He was wrong,” Talia says with a growl underlying each word. 

“I’ve kept you safe all these years by following the rules,” Peter argues and she shakes her head. 

“At the expense of your own happiness,” Talia says. “At the expense of yourself.”

“I don’t matter,” Peter roars, anger bubbling in his chest. He leaps to his feet and flings his glass against the wall. Talia watches him from her seat. “I’m not important. I am—I’m surplus! Stock in the cannon!”

“I don’t believe that. I refuse to believe that,” Talia says softly, rising finally. She presses her hands on to his shoulders and shoves him down to his knees, his shoulders crunching under her hands. He stares resolutely at her waist and she digs her claws under his chin. “Look at me.”

He does, blue eyes meeting red and her expression is unbearably open. Her face is something from a Renaissance painting of the Virgin. A miserable part of Peter wants to tear her head off. He digs his claws into his thighs instead. 

“I release you,” she says. “From any vile rhetoric he put on you.”

He chokes on his next breath, face curled in disgust at himself. He wants to turn away but her claws are dug into him.

“I release you,” she continues. “From his rules and his control. You are mine. And my will is law.”

“Yes, Alpha,” he says in a harsh whisper. 

“I want a list of each and every rule he placed on you,” Talia says, her claws sinking into her fingertips against his chin. She grasps his face with human hands. “You are mine. And my will is law.”

She leans down, his eyes close, and she presses a kiss to each of his eye lids. 

Then she leaves him there, on the floor with blood dampening the sides of his pants. 

He stays down. 

***

Since Stiles’ confession, Peter finds himself more and more stringent in his allowances with Stiles. He finds excuses to stay in the woods longer. He locks himself in the office and listens to the boy lean against his door night after night. 

Stiles lets him self-isolate for less than a week. 

He heard Stiles leave with the twins earlier and he intends to sneak from his office up to his room in the attic. He makes it up and closes his bedroom door carefully, slumps against it, forehead to the cool wood. 

Footsteps behind him make him turn and then Stiles is launching himself at him, face screwed up in frustration. Peter catches him, naturally. Stiles is pressed against him with his legs around Peter’s waist, leaning back in Peter’s arms to sign at him furiously. 

Idiotidiotidiot, Stiles signs repeatedly in jerky motions, and he flicks Peter in the ear. 

“Stiles,” Peter says in fond greeting and he crosses the room to drop him on the bed. Stiles bounces back up and flicks Peter in the stomach. 

He then lays back, arms above his head and squirms until he’s got his head on Peter’s pillows and his dirty, mud encrusted shoes on his  _ expensive  _ duvet. 

He crawls onto the bed, kneeling at the end and taking Stiles’ ankle. He dutifully unlaces his sneakers, meeting Stiles’ eyes only when he’s dropped both shoes on to his equally expensive rug. 

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Peter sighs and Stiles props himself up on his elbows, presses the sole of his foot against Peter’s abs. Peter looks down at the connection and exhales through his nose.

Stiles’ socks have holes on each toe and probably have never been washed. Peter peels one off, then the other and looks up again. Stiles is grinning with teeth and he pushes his foot back against Peter’s stomach. 

“You don’t want to know what the disadvantage is?” Peter asks and he encircles Stiles’ ankle with both hands. The little gold chain, kept together with electrical wires, is cold under his hands. The word on the plate is bumpy under his fingers.  _ Claudia _ . Stiles’ mother.

A token from his life giver and murderer. 

Stiles shrugs, biting his lower lip around a smile, and something liquid changes in his body language. His shoulders slump forward and his chin falls back a little. His throat is bared to the world and Peter drags his eyes from Stiles’ mouth to his neck. 

He closes his eyes a moment and traces his train of thought. 

“I’ll tell you later,” he says finally and Stiles lets himself fall back on the bed. He stretches his arms over his head and presses his foot harder into Peter. 

“My father,” Peter starts again, weeks after the first attempt, and Stiles keeps his eyes on the ceiling. “Cut my throat. I was 19 in your years. He wanted me to know death.”

Stiles eyes glisten at the edges and Peter holds his ankle tighter. 

“And I do now,” Peter says softly. “I met her and she gave me back. You met her as well, bunny.”

Stiles nods, his buzz cut rasping on Peter’s pillow case, and a tear does slip out now. 

“We were betrayed, you and I,” Peter continues. “And we wear the emblem of our betrayers.”

“Mine is in my skin,” Peter says and he removes one hand from Stiles’ ankle to pull his shirt up. On his side is the last wound his father ever gave him, four claw marks curving over his ribs. They rip over time, bleeding occasionally, never healing. He replaces his hand, slides a claw under the gold chain and looks at Stiles. “Yours is here.”

Stiles nods, eyes trained above him. He is barely breathing. 

“Because we love them as much as we hate them,” Peter says. “Because even after what they did they were our blood.”

Stiles sits up then, wrenching his foot from Peter’s hands and he fists his hands in Peter’s shirt. 

Stop, he signs jerkily. Stop.

“You will never be able to move forward if you walk hallways filled with her photos. If you go to sleep with her picture beside your bed and her— _ name on your ankle _ ,” Peter finishes, mouth invaded by fangs. 

Stop, Stiles signs again and he smacks his palm against Peter’s chest. 

“This is what I am,” Peter growls, fangs still out. “I’m not nice. I’m not going to lie to you.” 

Stiles scoffs and jerks his hand, Liar.

“I am not,” Peter says. Stiles raises his eyebrows. Peter’s teeth recede. “Well, maybe I am.” 

Stiles lies back down on his side and pats the bed beside him. Peter huffs but he lies on his side as well, facing Stiles with his back pressed to the wall. 

Stiles, with his incredibly poor boundaries, he reaches out immediately and twists one hand in Peter’s shirt to pull it up. Then he runs his fingers over the scars on Peter’s side. 

Stiles is the first person to touch them besides Peter. This feels monumental. His rough, calloused fingers catch on the scabs and Peter sucks in a breath. He’s most human here, on these secret scars. 

Stiles is watching his face closely, searching for something beyond Peter’s comprehension. Peter swallows and Stiles raises a finger to touch his Adam’s apple, trace his jawline. Peter closes his eyes and Stiles’ exploration continues. Over his mouth, his nose, fanning his eyelashes and finally.

Finally. 

Finally, Stiles kisses him, softly and gently, between his eyebrows. 

Peter stays still, barely inhaling, and Stiles leaves his mouth against Peter’s furrowed brow. 

He exhales shakily, the warm air presses against Peter’s face and leaves him feeling like he’d been gifted something. 

Stiles wiggles closer, using Peter’s shirt to leverage him. He sticks his cold feet in between Peter’s calves and knees him the bladder in the process. He curls his head under Peter’s chin. He maneuvers Peter’s arms so he’s being held and then folds his own arms against his chest. 

I love you, he presses into Peter’s chest. 

“I know,” Peter says and they lay there in silence until they drift off. 

Peter awakens blearily, hours later. The sun is down and the moon does little to illuminate them. Stiles has moved in his sleep, turned onto his back and stretched out. He’s somehow got his arm around Peter’s neck and smashed Peter’s face into his armpit, one leg hanging off the bed. 

Peter inhales the scent of Stiles like a creep. His wolf revels in the scent of his pack intermixed on Stiles’ skin. The milk smell from Ada, cigarettes and comic ink from the twins, Marcella’s bubblegum shampoo, Derek’s gun oil and Laura’s antiseptic soap. 

Underneath it all is the scent of Stiles. Still wild. Still more animal than man. 

Peter carefully extracts himself from Stiles’ grasp and climbs off the bed. He stretches and walks towards his dresser, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes and shucking his pants. He stoops and dumps them both in the hamper then finds pajama pants in his drawer. 

A sharp inhale has him turning, pants held before him, and he pauses when he sees Stile is awake. 

Wolves are, by nature, immodest. Nudity is a human concept but Peter is also aware that it’s a powerful concept. Stiles sits up, eyes tracing every inch of Peter’s body.

He stands. 

Pulls his shirt over his head. Half a year has done little for his body, he’s still scrawny and bony. He has his pants down around his knees before Peter really realizes what’s happening. 

“Stiles,” Peter starts and Stiles steps out of his pants.

The moonlight silhouettes him, marking the sharp edges on his shoulders and the gaps between his arms and sides. His skin is silvery on the edges, glowing like caps of waves before they fade into the dark blue of his face and torso. He steps closer and Peter realizes Stiles is trembling. 

“Bunny, get back in bed,” Peter says and Stiles backs up instinctively. His knees hit the edge and he sits down with a thump, mouth open and breathing heavy. 

Peter crosses the room, dropping the pants, and puts his hand on Stiles’ bird-bone chest. He pushes him and Stiles falls back. Peter urges him back up on the pillows and pulls the duvet over his legs. He ends up hovering over Stiles, hands bracketing his knobby shoulders and Stiles is staring up at him. 

Peter leans down, ignoring the way Stiles tilts his chin up and presses a mirrored kiss to his forehead. Stiles exhales all at once, reaching up and clinging to Peter and pressing his face more firmly to Peter’s mouth. 

Peter waits for Stiles’ arms to give out then rolls to lay on top of the duvet beside him. Stiles follows, turning into him again under the blanket. The peak of his shoulder is bared to the moonlight and his eyes glimmer darkly. Peter reaches out, haltingly, then runs his finger from Stiles’ bicep to the nape of his neck. 

Stiles shivers and edges a tiny bit closer. 

“Sleep,” Peter says and he grips the back of Stiles’ neck. Stiles nods and closes his eyes. 

Peter listens to his stuttery breaths and rapid heart beat for a long time.

***

_ Help me write a letter to my dad. _

Peter looks at the notepad shoved in his face and then peers at Stiles over his sunglasses. 

“Why should I?” Peter asks but he gestures for Stiles to join him in the hammock. Stiles ends up curled in a ball beside him, sitting up against Peter’s arm. Marcella is at the other end perched on his legs with her sparkly gel sandals crossed on his stomach. She’s also wearing sunglasses and she gives a little growl when Stiles jostles the hammock. 

Stiles bares his teeth at her and she sets her DS on her stomach. 

“Stiles,” she says. “Me and Uncle Peter are having hammock time. And you are rocking the hammock.”

Stiles squints at her and shrugs.

“He’ll stay still, Marcy,” Peter soothes and she sighs loudly. 

“Fine,” she says and picks her DS up again. She flashes yellow eyes at them. “He better.”

“Marcella has obviously come into her wolf,” Peter says and Stiles claps for her. This appears to appease her. “And early at that. Most wolves don’t manifest until they’re nine or ten. And here’s our girl at seven. Her control is especially impressive.” 

“I’m very impressive,” she agrees and then she dives back into her game. 

“Your shadows will want on this hammock too,” Peter tells Stiles and he rolls his eyes. “I can hear them looking for you.”

_ There is  _ _ no _ _ room. _

“Tell the twins that,” Peter laughs.

“Stiles,” the twins say at once, barreling out the door. “Derek says he heard the Sheriff say he was looking for a tutor—“

“You guys smell...,” Cora starts and they pull up short. 

“...Close,” Rowan finishes. “What’s up?”

“It’s hammock time,” Marcy says before Peter can formulate an answer. 

“So it is,” Cora says. Peter can see her trying to find a place she can cram herself in. 

Don’t even, Stiles signs and Rowan walks closer and plucks the edge of the hammock. 

“What do you think the max load on this thing is?” He asks Cora and she makes a face like she’s actually doing the math. 

“I think three wolves and a human,” she says and Rowan nods conspiratorially. 

“There are two of you,” Peter drawls and they look at each other. 

“We forget,” Rowan says with a shrug and Cora begins to climb into the hammock. Rowan braces her back and she squirms in beside Marcy. Rowan ends up under Peter’s legs and Marcy and they all freeze when the hammock creaks under them. 

“What were you saying, twins?” Peter asks once the hammock settles. 

“You and Stiles smell—“

“ _ Before  _ that,” Peter interrupts and Cora frowns at him. 

“The Sheriff,” she says finally. “He’s going to hire a tutor for you.”

“We can tutor you,” Rowan says. “We can take a gap year.”

“Did you clear this with your Alpha?” Peter asks and they roll their eyes in unison. 

“Yes, uncle,” they say.

Peter tickles Stiles under his arm. 

“What do you think?”

I like that, he signs and Peter nods. 

“You guys could take Stiles home,” Peter offers. “Apply for the position in person.”

“You got it, uncle,” Rowan says and shoots finger guns across the hammock at them.

”You sure you don’t want to, Peter? Stiles? Are you hot for teacher? ” Cora asks, gesturing between them, and Rowan reaches over to pinch her.

“You guys are ruining hammock time,” Marcy roars and she drops fang. “Hammock time is for me and Uncle Peter. Not stink brains!”

“I’m going to tell your mom you yelled at us, Marcella,” the twins chorus and Marcy roars again. 

Talia appears in the doorway and beckons the twins with a finger curl. They groan but slink off the hammock. 

“Barf breath,” Rowan hisses as he crawls over her and Marcy growls at him. 

The hammock settles and Marcy’s face melts back into a human one and she begrudgingly begins playing again.

“So, a letter,” Peter asks and Stiles snuggles a little closer with a smile. His scent turns a little sour and Peter exhales through his nose. 

_ Want to tell him. About her. _

“Ah,” Peter says and Stiles tilts his head onto Peter’s shoulder. “That’s a hard letter.” 

Yes, Stiles nods. It is. 

“Let’s start where it all starts,” Peter offers. “‘Dearest father, I have a tale of misery and sorrow to regale you with.’ Start there.”

Stiles sneers at him but begins to write something akin, his handwriting growing clumsier towards the end of the sentence. 

“Keep going,” Peter says and Stiles hesitates a moment before surging on. 

His scent changes dramatically, cycling and ebbing and flowing so quickly Marcy pinches her nose closed. 

“Maybe Stiles needs hammock time more than me,” she says eventually and clambers off the hammock. 

On her way off the porch into the yard, she puts one hand on the hammock and swings them over enough that she can press a kiss against his cheek. 

He pauses his writing and signs to her, Thank you. 

She trots off into the garden and Stiles watches her go for a moment, his scent distinctly melancholy. Then he sets back to writing. 

Peter gives him privacy, head tilted back in the sunlight. He drifts off at some point and when he wakes up again Stiles is crawling off the hammock with sheathes of paper clenched in his grubby little hand. 

Peter watches him silently, wondering if he should follow. Wondering if he should offer to be there for Stiles when he gives his father the letter. Wondering if any of these feelings are real or just a symptom of his trauma. 

He closes his eyes and leans back on the hammock. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting. It means a lot to me that there are other humans connecting with my version of Peter. I’ve struggled with translating the loud, verbal Stiles we know and love into this story but I hope his character reads through.
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr at [tarantula-teeth](https://tarantula-teeth.tumblr.com/)


	3. i get hurt in you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of specific abuse here. Physical and psychological.

“Stiles’ counselor suggested that he and I go to where he was staying,” John is telling Talia. Peter is laying on the roof, watching storm clouds roll in. It’s the only place he can find solace and still be able to keep watch over his pack. John continues, “Before Laura found him.”

“I see,” Talia says. “And Stiles feels capable of guiding you there?”

“That’s the thing,” John says and Peter can hear him shrug out of his jacket. He sits heavily in a kitchen chair and someone, maybe Laura, pops a beer cap for him. “I took him out to where Laura found him.”

The wolves are silent. 

“And, oddly enough, Stiles told me that he’d never been there. He kept trying to tell me that Peter had found him. Here, at the Hale House. Which is obviously confusing for me.”

“I won’t disrespect our friendship by continuing a farce,” Talia says and John is tellingly silent. “We did find him closer than Strawberry Rock. We lied.”

“I don’t understand why,” John says. His heart is deadly-calm. 

“Peter found him in our woods. Maybe a third-mile away. And brought him back here and did what we could for his leg,” Talia continues. 

“Why didn’t you turn him over to the authorities? Why doctor him yourselves?”

“We wanted to insure that he would be safe—that we weren’t going to send him back to the same bad situation,” Talia continues and Peter can hear in John’s blood pressure that it was the wrong thing.

“And it’s your right to decide that? You get to play judge and jury?”

“I am sorry we kept your son from you longer—even for just hours—but I have a duty to my family as well—“

“We have been  _ searching the wrong area _ ,” John snaps. “All my deputies—even Derek—God. Derek knew. He canvassed Strawberry Rock for evidence and he  _ knew  _ it was a fool’s errand. Your family impeded investigations on the disappearance of my son. How do you explain that, Talia?”

“I-I didn’t realize Stiles’ hadn’t told you what happened,” Talia says and John sucks in a breath. “Or that the investigation was still being actively pursued. He penned a letter here. Last week. And he hasn’t been by so I thought—“

“He didn’t give it to me,” John says. Something clatters on the roof beside Peter, drawing him from his eavesdropping. A pinecone. 

He ignores it. 

“—something I need to tell you. To explain the secrecy—“

Another pinecone lands beside him and he stands to peer over the edge. Stiles is on the ground, staring up at him and waving his arms. Peter sighs and does a neat tuck and flip off the roof to land beside him in a crouch. 

Stiles rolls his eyes and then gestures toward the house, My dad and your Alpha. 

“Your father is being brought into the fold,” Peter says and they make their way up the porch steps. “Talia is telling him about us.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just pulls the letter from his pocket. He’s been carrying it around for days. It’s a tattered thing now, filthy from Stiles’ hands and pants. Peter is pretty sure he tried to burn it from the singe marks on one side and he definitely buried it. 

He pulls open the front door and Peter internally winces at the anxiety streaking from the kitchen. Laura and Talia are sitting across from John at the table and he’s emptied one beer and moved on to a second. 

“Really, son?” He asks when he sees Stiles slinking into the kitchen. “Werewolves?”

Stiles climbs onto the chair beside his father, sitting on his heels with his back braces against the chair back. He darts a glance at Peter, then turns back and slaps the letter on the table. 

There’s a silence and then Talia lifts her chin, gesturing for Peter and Laura to leave. Peter tamps down his irrational need to stay and turns curtly on heel. Laura is a step behind him and they silently move to the sitting room. 

Some of the pack is already there. Rachel is in an armchair by the fire. Cora’s brushing her hair on the couch. Rowan is sprawled on the floor before her with Cora’s feet on his stomach. 

“Uncle,” Cora says in greeting and Rowan sits up on his elbows. 

“Do you know who hurt Stiles?”

“Yes,” Peter says and he leans against the mantle. There’s a family portrait of the founding Hale family and he draws a finger across the face of the smiling Alpha Hany. “Do you think they had any idea how the world would change?”

“Oh, good grief,” Rachel sighs. “Poignant Peter is the worst.”

“The  _ worst _ ,” the twins agree and Peter frowns.

“It’s a valid question,” he argues and turns from the portrait. “Aside from that, I’m surprised neither of you figured out the mystery of Stiles yet. Points removed, twins.”

“Lame,” they groan. 

Cora sits forward though, and makes a face.

“We do know, though,” she says. “We figured it out. Stiles told us about his mom.”

“She was crazy and hated him,” Rowan continues from the ground. “Thought he wanted to kill her.”

“And Stiles said that the person who cut his throat was close to him--”

“And his dad,” Rowan interjects. 

“So, two plus two is four--”

“Stiles’ mom tried to merc him.”

“Solid logic, if inelegantly presented,” Peter says. “Points reinstated.”

“Do you actually track their points?” Rachel asks.

“I do,” Peter says and settles in the other chair.

“Daddy didn’t assign points,” Rachel says offhandedly.

“No, he didn’t,” Peter says crisply. 

“I remember we were always racing though,” she continues and Peter flexes his hands, fighting the urge to pop his claws. “He’d have us just run in circles around the house.”

“Of course, that was before he realized you were human,” Peter says. Maybe if he pretends to be fine then he will be. “Then his training became more focused.”

“Now, I realize how fucked up it is...But I used to be so jealous of you,” she laughs. “Jealous. Christ. Jealous of being tortured.”

“This is a fun topic, Rach,” Peter says with faux-brightness and she waves a hand at him. 

“It’s no wonder you’re so drawn to Stiles,” she muses. “He’s you. Your own little trauma mirror.”

“You’re in quite the mood tonight. What is that supposed to mean?” Peter grinds out and Laura moves between them with her hands raised. 

“Let’s simmer down,” Laura says and evens them both a look. “This isn’t the time, Aunt Rachel.”

“Yeah, save it for your fucking therapist. Tell him how sad you are that our Father didn’t beat you,” Peter snaps and Rachel laughs.

“Peter,” Laura snaps.

“At least he looked at you,” Rachel sneers. “Talia was the Alpha and you were the Left Hand and what was I? Just the human. Do you remember the time he--”

“Rachel, stop,” Laura tries and Peter interrupts her.

“Let her finish. Come on, Rach. What time? What tender memory of daddy do you want to dredge up?”

“I wanted to come with you--on a training session. And Daddy told me no but I begged. I pleaded to come just so I could feel like someone saw me. And we walked to the top of Strawberry Rock,” Rachel says and she sounds far away. Like a lost child at the bottom of a well. “And I was just so happy. And he started talking about weak links.”

“Yeah. I remember,” Peter says, miserable. 

“And I didn’t get it until he pushed me over that cliff. And you caught me. And I was hanging there--”

“Jesus,” Laura says, despite herself.

“And he said--he said--,” Rachel’s voice falters. 

“‘You or her’,” Peter finishes. “And he let me pull you up and I had to step over the edge.”

“God,” Rachel says and she presses her sleeves against her eyes. “He was a monster.”

“Why are we talking about him?” Peter asks and buries his face in his hand. “Why are we wasting a single breath on him?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel says. “I’m sorry.”

Peter wants nothing more than to flee up to his room, lock himself up and turn this anger into something. He must wait for Stiles, though. He must be certain Stiles is fine and then he can reset himself in the privacy of his own room. 

Laura sits on the arm of his chair and he starts. He’d lost himself in his memories, feeling the swoop in his gut of the ground dropping out from beneath him and hearing Rachel’s wail echoing in his ear. 

He looks up, Rachel and the twins are gone. He looks further up at Laura. 

“You smell so sad, Laura-loo,” he says and she smiles down at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, eyes miserable. “Nothing, my dear uncle.”

“Is the Sheriff still here?” He asks and she nods. 

“Listen,” she prompts and Peter does. “Find your anchor.”

He loses the floaty feeling piece-by-piece and he zeroes in on Stiles’ heartbeat. It’s thready, racing and slowing. John is apologizing, over and over and Talia is making calming noises. 

“You should stay here,” Talia says softly. “Tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” John says. “For my anger.”

“I think you’ve apologized enough for one night,” Talia says, kindly. “Shall I make a bed up?”

“Thank you,” John says and Peter hears Talia’s footsteps heading towards them in the sitting room. 

“When the levy breaks,” she says upon entering. She drags a hand over Peter’s neck on her way by and sits heavily on the couch. “Laura, is the Sheriff’s room prepared?”

“Yes, Alpha,” Laura says with a nod. “I sent the twins already.”

“Thank you, darling,” Talia says and she presses her hands to her temples. “Peter. Rachel doesn’t mean to pour salt on the wound. She was-- and is --the pup of the family. Don’t let the Prada pumps fool you.”

“I--am aware,” Peter says. He deflates. “She has such a weird--such a  _ flawed  _ view of our childhood.”

“She does,” Talia agrees. “But it’s not baseless. I was Aunt Molly’s Second. You were the Left Hand in training. Rach was the first human born to a Hale in generations. She was shoved into the proverbial basement.”

“The irony is that I was jealous of her. So terribly envious. Sweet little Rach playing dollies while Father shows me how to burn wolfsbane bullets out of my stomach,” Peter snarls and Talia closes her eyes. 

“I want that list by the end of this week, that evening,” Talia says. “All of Father’s rules you can think of.”

“Yes, Alpha,” he says mulishly. He can hear Stiles and the Sheriff approaching and he finds himself instinctively straightening in his chair. He slouches in protest of his unconscious actions. 

“I can’t thank you for what you’ve done,” John says the the three of them and he pulls Stiles in with an arm around his neck. “You Hales may be--uhh-a little left of human. But you’re saints either way. 

Peter fights the urge to snort and he can tell he’s had by Stiles’ nose wrinkle. Stiles pulls free from his father and crosses the room, leans over Laura to take Peter’s hand. 

Tomorrow, take me to my old home, he signs and Peter nods. 

“Tomorrow,” he says and Stiles nods. “It won’t be a short trip.”

“I can be ready,” John says. “I cleared this week. “

“We’ll leave early,” Peter says. “We could make it in a day if we leave at dawn.” 

“Thank you for taking the time,” John says and Peter waves his hand. “I guess I’ll go get some sleep.”

Stiles lurches towards him for a hug and Peter wonders how long he has to wait to go to his own bed. The Sheriff heads upstairs and Stiles disappears to the back of the house.

“Do you want to bring another wolf?” Talia asks and Peter shrugs. “I’m sure the twins wouldn’t mind joining you. Could be good tracking practice.”

“As you say, Alpha,” Peter says. 

“Alright, you’re dismissed,” Talia says with wave. “I’m going for a run.”

“May I join, Alpha?” Laura asks and Talia nods.

Peter waits for them to leave before he heads upstairs. He smells Stiles once he hits the staircase that leads to his bedroom door and he loathes the blush of warmth in his chest. 

Peter closes the door behind him and leans against it. He exhales, steadying himself, and looks up into his room. Stiles is in his bed, clothes in a pile on the floor. 

“When’s the last time you bathed, Mowgli?” He asks and Stiles shrugs with a yawn. He stretches luxuriously, like a cat. 

Peter toes off his shoes and stoops to pick them up. He carries them to his shoe closet and puts them away.

It’s a replay of their last night together. 

He strips and puts his clothes in the hamper, terribly aware Stiles’ eyes on him, and then ambles into his en suite. He has a giant bathtub, nestled into a corner with jets built into the sides. 

He’s created a ritual to recenter himself, created a place his father has never been, in his bathroom. It’d been built after he’d died and, thus, Peter finds great peace there. He adds his au natural bath oils, orange and bergamot, to the tub before turning on the taps. Lights candles, turns off the overhead, puts music on his little speaker hidden behind the ferns. 

The bathroom is steamy, warm and cocoon-like, when Stiles cracks open the door. 

Peter’s rinsing off in the shower while the tub fills and Stiles pulls open the door with dirty hands. Peter moves aside wordlessly, lets Stiles in under the water. 

A discouraging amount of dirt rinses from Stiles’ skin from the water alone and Peter shakes his head. 

“Hold still,” he murmurs and Stiles blinks at him from under the water. His lashes clump together and he flutters them against the water pouring over his face. Peter unceremoniously dumps body wash over his crown and scrubs a lather on his head. Then behind his ears. His neck, thumbs sliding over his scar. Shoulders, collarbones. The rigid line of his sternum. 

Stiles’ eyes are closed and Peter feels a drop in the pit of his stomach at the open, yearning expression on his face.

Peter works the suds down his biceps, under his armpits, the crooks of his elbows and lines of his forearms. He works his fingers between Stiles’ and uses his little boar bristle brush to scrub under Stiles’ nails. 

“Once you’ve soaked,” Peter says, voice rough. He pushes through it. “Once you’ve soaked, we’re cutting your nails.”

Stiles exhales heavily, wavering on his feet and Peter steps back. Stiles blinks, furrows his brow. 

“Finish the rest,” Peter says and he climbs out of the shower. 

The bath is ready and he sinks into it. Stiles is a particularly unique addition to his safe little room. The first living thing he’s brought in besides a potted plant. He expected to be more shaken by it. 

He’s unsettlingly calm about it. Almost pleased. It’s a sensation he feels often with Stiles. 

Stiles turns off the shower, sidles out of the shower and manages to avoid every bathmat on his way to the tub. 

Bathing twice? He signs at Peter. 

“I’m a man of luxury,” Peter tells him and Stiles rolls his eyes. 

You’re a giant girl, Stiles signs back and Peter snorts.

“You’re in the bath with me, princess,” Peter snarks and Stiles grins at him from across the tub. 

No ---, Stiles signs and Peter scratches his chin. 

“I don’t know that sign. Spell it,” he says and Stiles dutifully finger spells. 

B-U-B-B-L-E-S.

“Ah,” Peter says. “Bubbles are for children. And despite current company, other people are _ not _ allowed in this space.”

I’m special, Stiles signs with a smug, toothy smile. He sinks down into the water so only his nose and eyes are poking out. 

Peter privately agrees. 

They talk idly until the bath loses temperature. Peter feels like he’s gotten what he needed so he drains the tub and climbs out. Two towels later, he’s got Stiles in a pair of his boxers and his feet in Peter’s lap. He trims Stiles nails matter-of-factly, finishing the feet and moving to the hands. 

Then, he applies lotion and buttons himself into a full pajama set.    
  


What? Stiles signs, sitting up. No clothes.

“Yes clothes,” Peter replies and he turns out the lamp in his bedroom. “Yes clothes and yes sleep.”

Stiles huffs an irritated breath. 

Peter rolls his eyes and crawls over his to lay with his back against the wall. 

“What do you expect to find at your old home?” Peter asks and Stiles drums his fingers over his own stomach, considering. 

Nothing, maybe. 

“Then why go?”

Dad wants to, Stiles says and Peter nods against the pillow. 

“Alright,” Peter says. “Good night.” 

Stiles squirms closer, practically wedging himself under Peter. 

But, he sleeps. 

***

In the early morning, Peter awakens to Stiles already watching him. He blinks sleep from his eyes and sits up, ruffles his fingers through his own hair. 

“It’s early,” Peter says intelligently and Stiles rolls his eyes with a fond smile. 

When are we going? 

“Soon,” Peter answers. “I have something. For the trip. For tracking. But also. For you.”

You sound weird, Stiles signs. Silly.

“If the sun isn’t up, you can’t hold me to any standards,” Peter says blearily and lays back down. The bed is so very warm and soft. 

It’s beginning to smell of Stiles. Before Peter can think it through, he’s drawn Stiles close and rubbed his face on his shoulder. He pauses. 

In for a penny, he decides and sets his human teeth against the edge of Stiles’ bony shoulder. It’s smooth against his lips and he makes a content growling sound deep in his chest. 

Stiles is giggling, or Peter thinks he would be by the rapid exhalations, and he’s curled up in Peter’s arms with his little toes tucked into Peter’s stomach. Peter worries the skin, lapping it once or twice, and decides to be embarrassed later. His wolf is metaphorically rolled on its back, belly bared, and he follows suit. He rolls them so Stiles’ is sprawled over his chest and leans up to nuzzle the base of his throat. 

“Smell good,” he says and he really is in heaven. The scent of him and Stiles is overwhelming--infatuating--mind-numbing--transcendent.

Stiles’ goes limp, oozing over him and resting his head on Peter’s pillow. He’s breathing hard, small pants, and Peter rolls them again so he can pin Stiles down on the bed. 

He sniffs a trail from Stiles’ ear across to his armpit, down the line of his sternum to his navel. He rubs his lips over the trail of coarse hair under Stiles’ navel and it isn’t until Stiles’ legs clamp over his ribs that he realizes what he’s doing. 

He snaps up, drawing back to the foot of the bed with inhuman speed. Stiles sits up as well, legs outstretched, mouth shiny and pupils blown. He’s panting and hard and Peter darts across the room to lock himself in the bathroom. 

Stiles’ is there before he can process what’s happened, banging on the door with tenacity. 

“I need a moment,” he shouts and Stiles bangs harder on the door. “A moment. Please.”

The banging stops. Peter can hear Stiles’ breathing hard. He’s catching his breath and Peter turns from the door. He sees himself in the mirror, hair mussed and face red. 

He’d been--

He’d--

His breathing shallows, cranking his lung rapidly and he sinks down to the ground. He scrabbles at his chest, cutting through his pajama shirt and slicing fine lines on his skin. He recalls the lessons he’s learned on control, tries to dig his claws into his legs but falters again and again. His chest is in a vise and he--can’t--breath. 

Distantly, between the black sparks on the edges of his vision, he hears that banging on the door again. 

When he awakens, lurching upright, he’s staring into his nephews face. 

“Peter? Peter?” Derek repeats, hands on either side of Peter’s head. “Are you back?”

“Yes,” Peter says, swallows hard. He shoves Derek away and scrambles to his feet. His door is broken, the area around the doorknob has been kicked in. “Get out.”

“Peter--,” Derek starts and Peter whirls on him. 

“Get out,” he says louder. “You can’t be here.”

“Peter, please,” Derek says. “I need to make sure you’re alright.”

“I am. I’m fine. Now, get out,” Peter repeats and Derek finally moves out of the bathroom. Peter can breath again. 

“This doesn’t look--right,” Derek says and Peter drags his eyes over to his nephew. He feels like he’s moving through syrup. 

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re on the floor in the bathroom and--and the Sheriff’s kid is in your underwear in your  _ bedroom _ ,” Derek says and Peter’s confusion melts into an all-consuming red. 

“Get  _ out _ ,” he roars and Derek stumbles back. 

Peter doesn’t yell at the children. Peter has never yelled at the children. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek says, shocked to the point of almost whining. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Derek, out,” Laura orders, appearing in the doorway and he nearly trips over his own feet fleeing. “Peter, find your anchor.”

Peter reaches for it instinctively, feeling a jab of revulsion when he realizes it’s Stiles. When he realizes it’s been Stiles for weeks now. Stiles, who is tucked away in a ball in Peter’s closet. Laura follows his gaze and she reaches behind her to close the door once she spots him. 

“Hey, Stiles,” she says and Stiles stares at her over his folded arms. “Peter’s okay. He’s upset but he’s okay.”

“I am,” Peter says and he kneels on instinct, knees cracking into the floor. “I’m okay.”

Stiles stays frozen for a split second longer then unfolds out of the closet. He moves over to Peter like an animal, hunching over himself. He straightens beside Peter and places a hand on his head, fingers twisting into his hair. Peter looks up at him, still fighting through syrup.

Stiles pulls his hair lightly and then signs something to Laura that makes her leave. Stiles crouches in front of him and fists a hand in the tattered front of his pajama shirt.

Get dressed, Stiles signs. Time to go. 

Peter nods and Stiles leans forward to press his forehead to Peter’s. 

Tell me later, Stiles signs. Then he holds up his pinky, Promise. 

Peter links his pinky with Stiles’ with a bitter snort. Stiles watches his eyes for another moment, releases him and they stand to get dressed. 

Peter retrieves a brown paper package from the cabinet above his wardrobe and carries it down the stairs after Stiles. Cora and Rowan are lurking in his hallway and they scent him fiercely as he passes, rubbing their faces on his shoulders. 

“Come along, twins,” he says nonchalantly, continuing past them and they descend into mindless chatter. 

“I personally feel that I am the best tracker in the house,” Rowan boasts and Cora flicks him in the ear. 

“False, brother o'mine,” Cora says and she leans over the sniff the package Peter’s holding. “I, for example, have figured out what our uncle is carrying.”

“I didn’t know we were competing,” Rowan protests and he leans over the package as well. 

They make their way down stairs with Rowan taking deep inhales over the package. Cora hops over the railing and bounds into the kitchen, catching Stiles in a headlock. 

Peter makes a point to not listen in to whatever Cora is whispering to Stiles but he does elbow Rowan when he spots his nephew eavesdropping. 

“What’s in the package?” Peter asks him and Rowan nods his head, rolls his neck and claps his hands. 

“It’s Stiles. Or it smells like him. It’s clothes?”

“Bingo,” Cora crows over Stiles’ head. 

“Points to Cora,” Peter says and Rowan nods. 

“Okay, I see how it is. I’m gonna get those points back today,” Rowan says and he sits at the table. Peter sets his package on the counter and takes a seat beside him. 

He feels polarized to Stiles, drawn to him intrinsically. It’s terrifying.

“Here,” Rachel says, handing him a mug. It’s coffee, prepared to his exact parameters. A peace offering in ceramic. He takes it. 

“Thanks, Rach-bug,” he says, unable to be completely magnamious. 

She wrinkles her nose at the childhood moniker and Talia leans between them to drop off a platter of waffles. She rubs a hand over them both and hovers with her hip pressed to Peter’s shoulder. 

“How are you, dearheart?” Talia asks and she lays a firm hand on Peter’s neck. It drives a shiver through him and grounds him. 

“Good, Alpha,” he says and she pats him. 

“Good,” she says. “You have a journey ahead of you. The twins are practically jumping out of their fur they’re so excited.”

“It's a good training opportunity ,” Peter says and they pause at the sound of John coming downstairs. 

“Good morning, Hales,” John says, yawning in the doorway. “How far exactly are we going? And is there a chance I can get a cup of joe?”

“We approximate that Stiles traveled around eighty miles,” Talia says and she pours him a cup. “Could be less, could be more.”

“He traveled with the elk herd that was driven out by the flash flood. They were centered around Starvation Flats,” Peter adds and he kicks out a seat for the Sheriff across from him. “We figure we’ll head that way and Stiles can steer us further. There’s a chance we can track his path if the flood hasn’t destroyed it all.”

“Track his... Right. The werewolf thing. I’d thought for a moment I dreamed that,” John sighs and he sits down at the table. 

Breakfast goes pleasantly enough and Talia has the twins carry out a cooler and backpack of food for them. 

The Hales have ATVs which render the distance between Beacon Hills and Starvation Flats inconsequential and the twins and Stiles have the ATV’s gassed and packed by the time John and Peter make their way out. The only person incapable of driving an ATV is Stiles and he climbs up behind Peter wordlessly. Peter very carefully doesn’t look at John. 

“Be safe,” Laura says, standing beside his ATV with her arms wrapped around herself. 

“Always, niece,” he tells her and then he starts his engine. He waves good-bye and speeds out into the woods, heading for an old service road that will bring them close to Starvation Flats. 

He knows the twins can keep up and quick look over his shoulder shows the Sheriff hot on his heels. He speeds up a little more and enjoys Stiles excited breath in his ear and the squeeze around his waist. They drive for close to a half-hour when Cora speeds up alongside him and gestures for him to pull over. 

They take a water break and then get back on the road. It’s another few hours before they peak the mountain range that curves around Starvation Flats. 

The Trinity River is a loud, rushing thing and it cleaves the valley in two. The river is engorged with run-off from the snow and in the valley’s stark, clean lines there is a terrible beauty.

Stiles digs his chin into Peter’s shoulder and he reaches passed him to point at a copse of trees. Peter inhales his scent without a second thought, turning towards Stiles’ wrist before catching himself. 

Peter waves a hand forward and begins down the access trail towards the trees. The land smells like mud, the air almost soggy with humidity, and Peter can barely even smell the elk that lived here. 

The service road ends with a line of boulders and they all peel off the ATV’s. 

“On foot from here,” the Sheriff observes, hands on hips. 

The twins bracket Stiles on either side, Rowan slinging an arm around his hips. 

“You good, brother?” Cora asks and Stiles nods. But he’s long gone, in his own mind, and Peter sighs. 

He’d been expecting this. 

Peter pulls the paper package from the basket on the back of his ATV and John jumps when the twins swivel suddenly to peer at it. 

”I get it,” Cora says. 

“Get what?” Rowan asks, leaning around Stiles to stare at the bag. “Get what, Cora?”

Peter reaches into the package and pauses when his fingers touch the fur. It’s greasy to the touch, unpleasant as it is odorous, and he pulls it out. The urge to push his face into it is nearly impossible to ignore.

Stiles charges towards him, pulling the fur clothes out of his hands and holding them to his chest. Stiles does press his chin into it, staring at the ground with a loose cant to his mouth. 

“You’re going to leave them here,” Peter says. He grabs Stiles by the back of the neck and pulls him close, presses his mouth into Stiles ear. “You’re going to put these clothes into whatever hole you crawled out of and rejoin the human world. You’ve been wild too long.”

Stiles stays still, muscles taut and heart beating in his chest like a little bird’s wings. 

“Take us there,” Peter orders and he gives Stiles a small push. He stumbles at first but then he’s surging onward into the trees. 

“Stay on him,” Peter tells the twins and they slip into the copse after Stiles. 

“I think I’ve got it figured out,” John says, looking off into the woods with a hand shading his eyes.

“Oh?” Peter asks politely and he starts following his Pack.

“Yeah,” John says a moment or two later, climbing over a log. “Talia is the Don. The Boss. And Laura is the Underboss. You’re the Consigliere.”

“Did you just equate werewolf pack hierarchy to  _ The Godfather _ ?” Peter asks, appalled and intrigued in the same turn. 

“Yeah,” John signs. “I guess I did. And the others—Derek and Laura and the twins and them—they’re the rest of the Family. Your underlings.”

“I suppose the metaphor holds,” Peter concedes, scenting the air. “Fair enough, Sheriff.”

“Call me John,” he says and stoops to press his hands on his knees. “Jesus. My kid—my boy. He lived out here all this time.”

“He’s formidable,” Peter says, listening to his fool pups rustle through the dead grass. 

“You say that like most men say ‘built’,” John says and Peter fights the urge to turn towards him. “Or ‘one hot piece’.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Peter decides to say and the Sheriff makes a noise of agreement. 

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” John says. “You don’t have much to say.”

“Would you rather I strike up idle chit-chat?” Peter asks and he starts walking again. He smells a trap.

“No,” John says, sounding far too innocent. “Not really. But I am curious about something.”

“Ask your pet deputy,” Peter suggests and folds his arms behind his back. “It’s not my shift for werewolf tour guide.”

“Well, I don’t think Derek knows the answer to this question,” John says and Peter waits for the guillotine blade in his voice to come crashing down. 

“Quickly, John,” he says before he can stop himself. “We haven’t all day for you to ask me invasive questions.”

“Did you read his letter?”

“No.”

“He said—,” John sighs and catches Peter’s arm. Peter lets him and turns to face him. “He said he was in love with you. And that you were his savior.”

“Delusional ravings of a traumatized boy,” Peter answers. “Nothing more.”

“So, to clarify,” John says. “You don’t let him sleep in your bed. Or wear your clothes.”

“Against all of our better judgements, Stiles is Pack. And Pack means that we do whatever we can for each other. But I wouldn’t enter a romantic relationship with Stiles. I wouldn’t take advantage of him. He’s physically eighteen but emotionally he’s a child. I hold your son with the same regard I hold my nieces and nephews,” Peter says then pulls his arm free of John’s grasp. Peter pulls on his sleeve fussily, straightening the seam. 

“You let him ride behind you. Don’t think I didn’t notice how close he was,” John says and he jabs a finger at Peter. “Or the PDA. The way he disappears when you go to bed and reappears in the morning when you do. You’re right. He is a child.”

“If you were a wolf I would already be putting you in the dirt,” Peter says with his chin in the air. “Now, that’s not a threat. The opposite, in fact. A reassurance. By the nature of your elected position and the relationship you have with my Alpha, I am bound by more laws than yourself in regards to homicide. The same is to be said about any encounters I have with your son.”

“I trust Talia,” John says and he squints at Peter. “But I don’t trust you further than I can throw you.”

“Fantastic,” Peter drawls. “As delightful as being accused of violating your post-pubescent son is, they have reached Stiles’ dwelling.”

“We can pick this up later,” John allows and Peter rolls his eyes, heads towards his Pack. 

If he picks a harder path than before, well. No one could  _ prove  _ it. 

***

The place Stiles lived from the ages of eleven to eighteen is a fallen redwood log, tall enough the twins only have to stoop inside, and hollowed out to make a little home. 

There’s a bark door, strung together with vine or strips of fabric and coated in a layer of mud. Stiles has rolled it out of the way and he’s standing in the entryway of the log, fur clothes pressed to his side with one arm and the other hanging limply. 

The twins are inside, sniffing and exploring and Peter calls them back out with a snap of his finger. 

Stiles jumps at the snap, turning and pinning Peter with an inexplicable expression. 

“What is it?” Peter asks and Stiles sighs and walks into the log. He slips into his sloping gait, low to the ground and moving in a fluid motion. The clothes are still clasped to his body. 

The Sheriff, smelling mystified despite their recent tense conversation, approaches the log and bends to go in. He’s got a maglite and he shines it ahead of him. 

Peter hears rather than sees Stiles react to the light. The heartbeat increases, a sharp exhale, and the Sheriff’s surprised sound. 

The twins are pacing behind him, rubbing against his back occasionally and making small noises in the backs of their throats. They’re nervous, not fully understanding why Peter has them at heel when all they want is to follow Stiles. 

“Loathe as I am to admit—,” Peter says and the twins sidle up to stand at his sides. “—this moment is important for Stiles and his father. Stiles  _ was _ his first.”

“I know,” Cora grumbles. Her eyes are a bright yellow in this dreary land. A glance at Rowan reveals his eyes are golden as well. 

“Just—he’s freaking. And the Sheriff can’t tell. Wanna help,” Rowan whispers, knocking his body against Peter’s arm. “When?”

“When can we help?” Cora echoes. 

“Pop quiz, twins,” Peter says and they perk up beside him. “It’s your responsibility to decide when to enter the log. Points for whoever is correct.”

Cora, clearly wanting to invade now, flexes her claws in and out. A nervous habit. 

Rowan stills, listening carefully and tilting his head as he takes in information. 

Inside the log, Stiles is rummaging through something and the Sheriff is trying to get his attention. Stiles sounds frantic internally, heart jumping in lopsided rhythms, and Peter hides his wince as John approaches his son slowly. 

Rowan’s off like a shot, bounding into the log and stepping between Stiles and John just as the boy whirls to leap at him in a blur of motion. Cora trails behind him a few steps and then hovers in the entryway. Rowan catches Stiles easily, folding over him and whispering rapidly to him as the boy writhes. 

“Hey, brother—hey, you’re good. It’s us—it’s Pack—your dad—,” Rowan says gently and he keeps Stiles caged in his arms until he calms.

John’s heart is racing but Peter can see he stayed put. Peter begrudgingly is impressed. Stiles signs his apology in halting movements. 

“Don’t apologize, brother,” Cora says and she approaches to rub the side of her face on his, scents him instinctively. 

Stiles slumps in Rowan’s arms, hands clutching his arm and Peter finally moves towards the log. 

It’s damp inside, sodden with flood water but there’s a smell of Stiles to the wood. Shelves have been carved into the sides of the log. The shelves are stuffed full with colorful stones and glass bottles and animal skulls and every wildflower imaginable. There’s what was obviously a fire flue in the back. Peter’s eye is drawn upward by a cascade of dried flowers, hung from sinew strips, and an old sleeping bag suspended from the ceiling. The sleeping-bag-hammock is nestled in between many dangling things, feathers from a number of bird species, carved wooden totems, dried dragonflies and butterflies. 

Swirls, stars, geometric shapes and one long, arching drawing of a dragon coat the ceiling. Cartoon drawings of Power Rangers and Batman. A police badge. All carved into the wood inside the log. An ode to a stolen childhood, a stagnant pool of Stiles’ psyche out in the wild all these years. 

It repulses Peter as much as it charms him. 

“It’s incredible,” Peter says, words slipping out of him without permission. 

Stiles meets his eyes, still held between the twins, for a long moment and then shrugs out of their embrace. He crouches to collect his old fur clothing and sets it on a shelf. 

The hide clothing is a crumpled mess now and looks perfectly at home among the dried flowers and raccoon skulls. It looks like a piece of Stiles, scabbed off and discarded. 

Let’s go, Stiles gestures brusquely.

“Alright, son,” John says and he follows Stiles out. 

The twins trail after and Peter takes another moment to look, to catalog. His hand finds a small box in his pocket, a token Stiles had glossed over from the brown package. 

“Stiles,” he calls and the boy reappears in the doorway. Peter gestures for him to come back in. “One more thing.”

What? Stiles asks, creeping into the log. 

Peter kneels, an echo of their morning. He pulls up Stiles’ pant leg to reveal the gold chain tied around his ankle, Then, he pulls the box from his pocket.

Stiles has no reference for what the teal blue of the box means but he does freeze when Peter opens it. 

Inside is a gold bracelet with a plate. Peter pulls it free from the box and shows Stiles the blank face of the plate.

“You don’t have to,” Peter says, face plain in its honesty. “But I want you to know you can. You can leave it  _ all _ here. Stop dragging her around with you. This is...a placeholder. It’s blank so you can get anything you want engraved on it. Whoever. But not until you decide they are worth carrying with you.”

Stiles has a hand pressed to his mouth, the other arm wrapped around his torso. His eyes are dry but Peter can smell the astringent scent of sorrow welling from him. 

He nods from behind his hand and Peter neatly snaps the electrical wire holding it in. He fastens the new bracelet around Stiles’ ankle and rubs a thumb over the blank plate. 

He stands and silently passes the old bracelet to Stiles. Stiles takes it with that familiar reverence, turns and lets it skein from his fingers to pool atop the hide clothing. 

That’s all of me, Stiles signs. In a pile. 

“No,” Peter says and he puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “You’re quite a bit more than animal skin and links of metal, bunny.”

Stiles scrubs his fingers through his buzz cut, frustration buzzing in his scent, and he turns and storms out of the log. 

Peter takes one last look and follows. 

***

Later, they’ve left the valley and are about halfway back to Beacon Hills when they decide to camp for the night. 

The tents are up, three of them, and the fire has been put out. Peter zips himself into his own tent, turns off his lantern. The sooner he gets to sleep the sooner he can be home and be able to wash his hands of this entire affair. 

The Sheriff hasn’t said anything further but Peter can make out plenty in his body language. He hates Peter and, frankly, he has every right. 

Peter is spiraling, his memory folding and refolding over Derek and the Sheriff’s words. Weighing the truth of their statements and feeling their correctness. 

It doesn’t look right. But it is. Peter isn’t—Peter  _ wouldn’t _ . 

“God,” he mutters, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He can’t even think the term. 

His tent zipper runs along the track slowly, loud in the quiet night. He’d been lost in thought but a quick listen reveals his intruder to be Stiles. The boy creeps in, steals in like a shadow, and moves up Peter’s sleeping bag. 

He’s silent, his breath less than a sound, and he barely makes a noise against the whispery fabric of the sleeping bag. 

Peter’s eyes, lupine, can see Stiles in stark relief. A heaviness has settled into the lines under his eyes, his movements are marred by a subtle shaking. 

“Get back to your fathers’ tent,” Peter says, not unkindly. “This isn’t the time.”

Tell me now, Stiles signs. The bad thing. 

“What bad thing?” Peter asks, lying through his teeth. The look on Stiles’ face tells Peter that Stiles isn’t buying it. 

This mornings’ bad thing, Stiles says and Peter grits his teeth. He takes Peter’s pinky with his. Promised. 

“You’re a magpie,” Peter says, eventually. He sits up enough to pull Stiles down onto his chest. He can’t look into his eyes while he tells this story. “You’re a magpie but not for pretty trinkets. You want to steal all of my scars.”

Stiles nods, reaches up to rest a calloused hand on Peter’s neck and jaw. 

“After Father—after I  _ killed  _ Father,” Peter starts. He pauses. Clears his throat, surges ahead. “I had a lot of free time. I took up sharpshooting. There was an instructor who—Well. He saw my exposed edges, I suppose. He liked them. 

“And I was quite handsome, as a youth. Very James Dean, if you will. No, I guess you won’t. You’re a babe in the woods. But I was mysterious and damaged and terribly, unforeseeably vulnerable. I didn’t realize until it was too late what he wanted. I was foolish.”

Stiles starts to raise his head but Peter keeps a hand on his buzzcut, mindful of his claws. 

“Don’t look at me. I can’t have this conversation with you looking at me like that,” he says and wills his own wolfish blue eyes away. “I was young. I was able to consent by your laws. Nineteen. But I wasn’t prepared for that relationship.”

Stiles does rear back at that, irate. He can read between Peter’s lines and he doesn’t like what he hears. 

“Wait a moment,” Peter says and he pets Stiles back until he settles. He keeps his eyes on the roof of the tent. “Let me finish.”

Stiles scratches his fingers over Peter’s chest and sighs. He nods. 

“But I thought I did. I thought I was grown and capable of loving someone. I thought that he made me happy and that was enough. But I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know, Stiles. I didn’t understand how big the world is. You can’t understand how big it is. I can’t-I won’t be complicit in shrinking your world anymore than it has been. You have to go to college and get your driver's license and date other people. “

Stiles sits up then. His face is hopeful, eyebrows knit together and mouth purses. He raises trembling fingers and signs carefully, And then?

“Then we can talk about it,” Peter allows and sits up on his elbows. He meets Stiles eyes in the darkness and sighs. “Do you remember when I told you that you had me at a disadvantage?”

Stiles nods. 

“Looking into your head is like—seeing a bit of gold under a murky river. I can see the sparks and I know there’s something there,” Peter says and rubs a hand over the side of Stiles’ head. Stiles leans his head into the touch, eyes closing briefly. “But I can never really see what you’re thinking.”

Stiles exhales slowly, gazing at Peter.

“I can’t hide anything from you. You draw it out of me. I’m an open book for you, Stiles. You ask and I answer,” Peter tells him. “I can’t lie to you about this anymore than I can lie to you about anything. You need more time to adjust to the human world.”

Stiles shakes his head, miserable and tense and he leans forward to rest his forehead on Peter’s chest. 

“You have to figure yourself out before you can decide what you need,” Peter continues. “You may want..this. Me. But you’re not in a place to understand what that all means.”

I ——— you, Stiles signs and Peter shakes his head. 

“I don’t know what that means,” Peter says apologetically and Stiles throws his hands up. 

H—A—T—E, Stiles signs and he punches Peter’s chest. Hate—hate—hate you. 

“That’s alright,” Peter says. “I love you. Most ardently.”

Stiles stills then, fist against Peter’s chest. His smell is bright, joy and heartache circling in equally sharp spikes. 

“Go back to your father’s tent,” Peter says again and this time Stiles does. 

The night falls silent again. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the thoughtful comments. I treasure each one. I’ve realized this story is a lot longer that I thought it would be when I started. This is the first part of what will mostly likely be a three part series. We have one more chapter in this story left and then it’s going to switch gears a little. Be a little more Stiles centric. 
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr at [tarantula-teeth](https://tarantula-teeth.tumblr.com/)


	4. like bruise, like stone. too black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide idealization, verbal abuse in a flashback, blood from stepping on something sharp, past abuse mention.

**tantrum**

at first, this terrible mirror, gutted. it is thinking of taking me.  
at midnight, screaming illness, I fill a particular dark. I rustle, I  
thrash—a girl loose in the bramble, getting wretched, smashing  
up a glass syringe. how to return this rage, how it circles endless  
—like bruise, like stone too black. I get hurt in you, becoming  
skeleton. my ruffles everywhere, wilting.

_ -Emily Corwin_

The ride home is a brief affair, each of them eager to be apart from the next. 

The Sheriff had taken his wild boy home, murmuring about appointments and errands. Stiles had gone without protest, creeping into the back seat. The twins disappear into the woods almost immediately and Peter is left to stare up at the Hale House. 

The foyer, kitchen and half the lower floor had been part of the original house built by Alpha Hany in 1874. It had been added to, modernized and expanded, in the early 19th century and updated as new amenities were invented. Fresh paint and plumbing on a steady cycle. 

Peter fails to see anything beautiful in it anymore. Aside from his bathroom, nearly every inch had been tainted by his Father’s hand. And now, his bathroom has been invaded. 

Peter realizes the...silliness of the frustration. It’s a room, same as any other. 

It’s a lesson, he decides. Safety shouldn’t be something that can be removed by another person. It should be a mentality or a concept. Something no one can touch. 

This realization makes him feel absolutely, utterly alone. 

He walks across the lawn. Looks at the place where he’d torn his Father’s heart out. 

It’s a normal patch of grass. No dead weeds scarring the land. No wolfsbane sprouting, lurid and purple. 

Just grass and dirt. 

He walks over to it, crouches, then sits on it. Lays down. The mid-morning sunlight streams into his eyes and he keeps them open until they water. 

It’s so bright that the sky looks monochromatic. Sharp white clouds and the dime-sized sun behind them. The severe gray of the sky. He spread his hands out, digs them into the dirt and breathes in the minerals that his claws unearth. Father died here, his last vision was that of his own son. 

Talia had found him that day, stumbling from the woods with his entire front ruined with blood. He’d been wearing his Cyclone’s letterman jacket when it happened. The white sleeves were matted with blood and dead leaves. He’d still been weak, still low on blood, when Talia had swept from the house in a cloud of anxiety and fear. 

“Peter,” she gasped, catching him at the tree line. “Oh, God. What happened? Alpha? Alpha Molly!”

“Father,” he’d panted through a scarred throat, clutching her close and digging his face into her hair. “He--Talia. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. Why can’t I die? Why won’t he let me die?”

“Peter,” she sobbed and held him closer. “It’s okay. Molly will--She has to stop him.”

“I can’t do it another day, Talia,” Peter said softly, resolutely, tears drying up. “I won’t. I’m so tired. I can’t see a way out besides--.”

“Peter,” she breathed. “Stop--”

“It’s time,” Peter said. “I need it to stop. I love you.”

“Shut up,” she’d snapped, her rage startling against the hair neatly pulled back from her face. “Shut the hell up. He’s done. I’m Challenging him. I’ll kill him for this, Peter.”

“Talia, you can’t. You’ll die,” Peter said. “You can’t.”

“I die. You die--It is all the same. I won’t go on without you and he’s killing you. I’ll Challenge him tonight. You need to rest for now. You’ll be my second?”

“No,” Peter protested. “I’ll Challenge him. It’s my battle.”

“I’m your Alpha,” Talia argued. 

“It’s my battle,” Peter said, holding her gaze and she relented with a nod.

“Peter?” Laura asks, cutting through his thoughts, and he can smell Derek with her. “Peter, are you alright?”

“Peachy keen, Laura-loo,” he says and sinks a little more firmly against the ground. 

“You don’t look peachy keen,” she says, standing over him with her hair hanging on her shoulder. “You look kind of rough.”

“You know how I hate to travel,” Peter says, staring up at her and then he closes his mouth. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’ll go on a trip.”

“A trip?” Derek asks, unable to stop himself. Peter does not go on trips. “To where?”

“I’ve always wanted to hunt a moose,” Peter says, words flowing from him unbidden. Laura frowns at him and he tries to clarify.. “When I was a boy, I thought I’d go for my eighteenth birthday. That, obviously, didn’t happen.”

“A moose?” Laura echoes. “What in the fresh hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t fret,” Peter says. “I might just-- I’m babbling.”

“Yeah,” Laura says in a manner one might say ‘duh’. She reaches down and pulls him to his feet. “Come inside. Derek fixed your door. And he’s sorry he called you a pervert.”

“Oh, great,” Peter sighs and allows Laura to frog-march him up the porch stairs and into the house. Derek trails behind them. “And have you finished wringing your hands as well, nephew?”

“Peter,” Talia chides, meeting them in the foyer. Peter sighs. “Leave my sweet boy alone. How was the trip?” 

“Satisfactory,” Peter answers and makes his way into the sitting room. Marcy and Ada are sitting on a blanket on the floor, Marcy’s reading to her carefully. Caleb is sitting in an armchair with them. 

“Uncle Peter,” Marcy says in greeting and he kneels beside them, sprawls on his stomach and presses kisses to Ada’s fingers. 

“Marcella. Adaline,” he says in greeting. “Caleb. How was your night without me, pups?”

“Quiet,” Marcy says and she flops over to scent her uncle. “But that’s because the twins were gone.”

“Those terrible twins,” he agrees, rolling on his side to pat her shoulder. He hears the twins in question thud up the porch steps and come into the house. “My tent was beside theirs. You wouldn’t believe the snoring, Marcy.” 

“Those terrible twins,” she echoes with a giggle. 

“We resent that,” Rowan says, bounding into the sitting room. 

“We are delightful, Marcella,” Cora chimes in, flitting in behind him. “Terrific, even.”

“Terrific twins,” Rowan agrees and he picks up Ada to kiss her on the head and twirl her around. “Marcella, we would like to formally request--”

“Yes, formally--”

“To be known as the terrific twins. Thanks--”

“Thanks _ so _much,” Cora says and Laura slams her fist into the wall. 

“How are you just talking to each other?” She snaps, eyes blazing, and the twins lean into each other almost imperceptibly. The room goes silent and she throws a hand towards Peter. “Peter is--is losing his _mind_ and you’re just talking. About what?”

“Laura,” Talia snaps, eyes red. “Control yourself.”

“He’s your brother,” Laura cries, hands flexed into claws. “For starters--How could you let grandpa do that--”

“Laura,” Peter cuts in, climbing to his feet and crossing the room to her. “Come on.”

Talia nods to him over Laura’s shoulder and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. She’s tearing up now, sniffling but not crying. 

They go out of the house and into the woods, Laura leaning into him heavily and once they’re deeper she does start crying. 

“Oh, Laura,” Peter says and sets his chin against her crown. “I’m alright.”

“No offense, uncle,” Laura says, drawing back and looking at him. Her face crumples further. “But you aren’t. You’re so fucked up.”

“Jesus, Laura,” Peter snorts. “You’ve never been skilled at pulling your punches.”

“I’m sorry,” she says through a giggle. “I know. But you are.”

“What am I-- What makes you say that?”

“I don’t-- I don’t know how to start,” she admits and Peter offers her his arm. She takes it and leans her head on his arm. 

“Start where everyone does. The beginning,” Peter advises and she nods. 

“You’re paler than all of us--not literally. But you--Okay. You said I don’t pull my punches. You don’t even let yours land. You’ve always held us at arms length. It’s like your real self doesn’t ever surface,” Laura says. She tucks her hair behind her ear. “You don’t get mad. You don’t argue with us. Sometimes Aunt Rach, but even then. The first time I heard you yell at one of us was yesterday with Derek.”

“I don’t want you too--,” Peter cuts himself off. 

“Don’t want us to what?”

“Be afraid around me,” Peter says, icy self-revulsion filling his veins. 

“Peter, we couldn’t be,” Laura says. “But I think--Stiles. He brings the color back into you. You laugh and you’re snarky and you fight with him. He’s so good for you.”

“Your timing is poor, niece,” he says and a deep sigh rolls out of him. “I’m leaving soon. I decided--”

“What? Earlier on the ground? Where are you going?” 

“I don’t know. I need space. I hate the house,” he says and pauses at his blatant honesty. “ I might--I might move when I come back?”

“Might?”

“I really don’t know, Laura-loo,” Peter says. “I feel like my entire world got cracked open.” 

“Because of him,” Laura says and she steps in front of him, grabs his upper arms. “Why do I get the feeling he isn’t coming with you?”

“It’s not--I did the right thing,” Peter says. “I did. He needs more out of life.”

“See? You’re _ so _fucked up,” Laura says and she lets her head thump on his chest. 

“Laura. I don’t want to talk about that,” Peter says and he peels her off his chest. She looks up at him with her mouth pursed.

“Don’t you think you should? If it hurts, you have to press,” she says. “You can’t let it fester or heal crooked.”

“I hate when you pups use my own words against me,” Peter sighs and gestures for them to start walking again. “Neither of us is ready for--for anything like that.”

They walk in silence for a long while before Peter clears his throat. 

“Yes?” Laura asks. 

“While I’m gone. Keep tabs on Stiles. I would consider it a personal favor,” Peter says and Laura rolls her eyes at him. 

“Well, if it’s a personal favor,” Laura says and Peter knocks into her shoulder with his. 

“While I’m asking--Your mother. Did what she could for me. Does what she can. But she isn’t my keeper,” Peter says. 

“She let him hurt you so much. Every story I hear is worse than the one before,” Laura says and her voice is tight. 

“Let me tell you about what happened the day I succeeded my Father and became Alpha Molly’s Left Hand,” Peter says and guides them to sit on the bank of a creek. There’s a convenient log for a bench and he allows the bubbling water to center his mind. 

Peter had healed, curled up on the ground under Talia’s four-post bed for a few hours. She’d brought him clean clothing and raw hamburger meat that he had consumed in frantic chunks. 

Then, once he’d healed, he’d crawled off the ground and together they’d gone to find Aunt Molly and Father. Shoulder to shoulder, they’d made their way down the stairs into the kitchen.

“Talia, darling, don’t get your dress dirty. Have you been rolling on the floor, Peter?” Molly asked when she saw them, drying her hands on her apron.

Father had simply awarded Peter a satisfied nod. “I wasn’t sure I would see you again.” 

Peter stayed quiet despite Talia digging her claws into his arm, fear pulsing in his belly. 

“Fear is the most important thing a Left Hand can lose, Peter. And fear of death is easily the greatest fear of all. I challenge you to find something more frightening,” Father said and Peter felt a gruesome smile creep over his face.

“You’ve given me a grand opening, sir,” Peter said, a giggle building in his chest. Talia’s nails set in deeper and a drop of blood hit the granite tiling. “I have a challenge for you as well, sir.”

“Do you, boy?” Father’s voice had been acidic.

“Yes, sir,” Peter had said, fighting a smile. “I Challenge you. To the death.”

“Peter, what are you doing?” Alpha Molly snapped. “He’ll tear you apart. And you have no second. Rachel is human. She can’t take up against your father if she wanted to.”

“I am his second,” Talia said, chin up. She’s stood there in her forest green minidress and matching headband, kitten heels on her feet and Bakelite bangles around her wrists and looked her Alpha square in the face.

“Talia,” Molly had chastised. “You can’t.”

“I can and I will,” Talia said, steel threaded through her voice. “The Challenge is delivered. How do you respond, Father?”

“You know I must accept. I certainly won’t commit suicide,” Father said and stood. “Your mother is my second.”

“Their mother? She’s dead,” Alpha Molly interrupted. “What game are you playing?”

“There is always a third option, Alpha,” Father said. “I name Beatrice Hale as my second. She agrees.”

“You can’t speak for the dead,” Talia argued, releasing Peter’s arm. “It’s against the rules.”

“You don’t know the rules, little Alpha,” Father said. “But I do. The Challenged can name any wolf and they may not refuse.”

“He’s right,” Molly said through gritted teeth. “I can’t believe this. My pups. My lineage. Cut down in their prime.”

“When will we fight?” Father asked and Peter tilted his head.

“Now,” he said and Molly made a low keening sound. Peter and Talia turn as one, heading to the foyer and out into the front lawn. Father followed, ambling down the steps casually. Molly lit a cigarette with shaking hands and set to smoking on the porch, pacing in tight and agitated circles. 

“I’ll allow you to rescind the Challenge,” Father said and pulled his suspenders down off his shoulders, muscles bunching with the action. “So long as you clean my boots later. No brush though. Patricidal pups have to use their tongues.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Peter says, resolute. “And then I’m going to stuff your boots down your throat.”

Father barked a laugh, hand on his stomach, “Sounds like you dying did what I wanted it to. You finally grew a spine, Peter. Too bad you lost your fucking mind in the process. And your sweet little sister. Talia, girl, it’s not too late to step down.”

“It’s been too late for years,” Talia said and kicked off her heels. She flicked out her fangs and shook out her beta shift, fangs curving from behind pink lipgloss. “Your death is the first thing I’ll have done right since I came into my wolf.” 

“Enough talking,” Father said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Jesus,” Laura breathes and Peter blinks out his memories. “You guys were badass.” 

“Your mother is a badass. But know that everything she does is for the greater good of the Pack,” Peter says. “She does the hard things. You’ll do them as well. And the hard thing is weighing the greater good against a single wolf. The Pack must survive.”

“‘The lone wolf dies but the Pack survives’,” Laura says and Peter pulls her close to press a kiss to her head.

“No TV quotes when I’m lecturing,” he says and smiles against her hair. 

“Yes, uncle,” she says and leans against him. “So, you killed him. Obviously. But what did Alpha Molly do?”

“She couldn’t believe it,” Peter says. “This cunning warrior felled by a skinny, beaten little pup. Overall, she was glad we won because she lost less Pack. But to this day, I don’t know if she cared about us personally. She didn’t live long after. Maybe a decade. Your mother met Caleb when he was a resident at the hospital and she had just made partner at Whittemore and Martin. The rest is history.”

There’s a moment’s pause. 

“Rachel never forgave me, I don’t think.”

“Why not?” 

“I had just taken him down and pulled out his heart,” Peter says. “And I hear Rachel scream. I was 19 so she must have been--13? Maybe 14. And she didn’t--get it. She ran over and laid on him and wept. She’s the only reason he has a grave. Talia and I wanted to burn him. But she stood out there and dug it alone. Wouldn’t let us help and tore up her hands on the shovel.”

“Did you ever want to be Alpha?” Laura asks and Peter respects her enough to consider it. 

“No. I wanted to be your mother sometimes. She had a charmed life, comparatively. But I didn’t ever want to be Alpha,” Peter says. 

“I changed my mind,” Laura says. “You’re doing extremely well for what you’ve been through. I was wrong.”

Peter laughs at that, helplessly, and Laura buries her hands in her face. 

Awhile later she stands, brushes her hands over her thighs and nods to herself.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m good. Let’s go home.”

***

Peter debates on leaving without telling anyone. 

He thinks about how much neater it would be to excise himself from their lives in one fell swoop. He could be gone in less than an hour. 

However, he’d have to tell Talia and she would tell Laura. And Laura is incapable of keeping things from Cora and so forth. 

He decides to wait for the next family dinner. 

They’re collected around the table, each and every Hale. Stiles is sitting on the counter with his knees pulled up to his chest. He’s eating his spaghetti painstakingly with a fork and glaring at Peter over his bowl. 

Peter feels a flutter of affection when he drops a meatball onto his stomach and stabs at it with his fork. 

“I have a speech,” Peter says abruptly and stands, holding his wine glass close to his chest. “I have a few speeches.”

His family all level slightly-different confused expressions at him. 

“Laura, my treasured future Alpha. You have grown from a girl in frog rain boots to a wolf I would happily go to war for. I have watched you grow into a dignified, valiant wolf who commands a room and rules it with a fair hand. I have been happy--no. Privileged to be in your life. You have forced me to see the world with love and grace. I would not be the man I am today without your presence.”

“I--Thank you. I am privileged to know you, my dear Uncle,” she says, flushing. 

“My nephew, Derek. I fear you would be better suited as a noble monk in the 14th century. But all the same, I am glad you’ve had to live in our age. You have always been a sensitive creature and I have made a mistake in trying to toughen your skin. Your gentle nature is your greatest gift, Derek. I am sorry for every trying to change you. You’re absolutely perfect as you are--noble and kind at every turn,” Peter says and Derek, who had frozen at his name, blinks at him. Peter forges on. 

“Twins. My twins. My counterparts. My successors. You honor me daily in your actions. I did not expect to….ever feel parental. Not ever. But I see myself in each of you and they are the best parts of me. You are my pride and joy. You are the best thing I have ever done and I love you both more than words can say. I cannot wait to see where you end up, twins. I am blessed to have you,” Peter says, voice thickened with emotion. The twins’ eyes are glossy and they’re holding hands on the table. 

“Rachel, Marcy, little Ada. You have always been the humanity of our Pack--and in the best way. We need humbling to succeed in this world. You force us to find our softness and it’s an immeasurable addition to our Pack. I cherish each afternoon spent with you, Marcella. I appreciate every wiggle of Ada’s toes. Rachel, you will always be my beloved baby sister. I hope you know that I love you,” Peter says.

“I know, Peter. I’ve always known,” Rachel says with a sad smile. She dabs her eyes with her napkin and pulls Ada closer. 

“Caleb, brother, I could not build a better man for my sister. And those first few years-- I was basically a sociopathic maniac and Talia was a rubber band about to break and you--,” Peter’s voice breaks off and he rubs a hand over his face. “You showed us that a man can be good and a man can be someone you depend on. You saved this Pack whether you know it or not. In more ways than I can count. Thank you, brother.”

Caleb stands and they hug for a long moment. Peter draws back and turns to smile down at his Alpha, his sister. 

“Thank you, Alpha,” he starts and she presses a fist to her chest. “Thank you for believing in me. And for standing beside me. Thank you for pushing me and making me grow. Had I a weaker Alpha, I wouldn’t be standing here today. I find that words are failing me. You’ve given me the strength to let go of our past. To live my life for myself--”

“You’re leaving. Or dying,” Rachel interrupts. Peter freezes. “You’re leaving us?”

Chaos descends on the table and his family reacts in various, loud ways. Stiles drops his bowl, stands still as a statue. 

“Is that true?” Talia asks, a Mona Lisa smile curving over her mouth. 

“Yes,” Peter says and Stiles bolts from the kitchen. Peter falters, wanting to chase him, but his Pack is still staring at him. “I’m going in the morning.”

“To where?” Rowan bursts, anger coloring his voice. 

“How long?” Cora says, small and quiet. 

“First, Alaska. Then Barcelona. I don’t know after that.”

“You’re coming back? Right?” Marcy asks and when Peter looks at her, he sees that she’s cracked her own bowl. 

“I will be back,” Peter says and walks around the table to pick her up. He looks at his Pack, each of them in turn. “I will be back. I need room to--to heal. And I need space to reflect without seeing the walls I was--I can’t be here _ and _ be better.”

“It’s selfish,” Rachel snaps. “We need you here. The twins are about to leave for college--”

“We aren’t,” Cora says. “We’re taking a gap year. Tutoring Stiles.”

“The timing is perfect,” Talia says with finality in her voice. She stands, hands folded before herself, and smiles. “Peter, go with my blessing. I pray you find peace in your travels. I pray that--that you come home to us soon. But not before you’re ready.” 

“Thank you, Alpha,” he says, rueful. He buries his face into Marcella’s neck and hides a teary hiccup. 

“You’ve one last speech to give, brother,” Talia says and she crosses to take Marcella from him. “Your little bunny is upstairs.”

Peter nods and looks at his Pack once again. 

He heads towards the stairs. 

He hears it before he sees it. Crashes and tears and thumps. His door is open and Stiles freezes when he hears Peter on the stairs. 

He’s breathless, panting and red-faced, standing in the wreckage of Peter’s room. He’s shredded the curtains, smashed the record player, thrown Peter’s house plants from one end to the other. 

He’s weeping, tears dripping off his chin.

He’s the most precious thing Peter has ever held.

I hate you, Stiles signs in big, staccato movements. I hate you. 

Peter squeezes his eyes closed, pleads forgiveness from a God he doesn’t know and from the wild thing in his bedroom in the same breath. 

Hands thump into his chest and, when he opens his eyes, Stiles is there. Clutching his shirt and begging him with silent words. 

“We both-- Listen,” Peter snaps, grabbing Stiles when he tries to turn. “Listen to me.”

Stiles turns his head, slumping in Peter’s arms and he shakes his head. 

“We both need space. Neither of us can heal if we’re just scabbing over each other. And I can’t leave you alone if I’m here. I’m too selfish. So, I’m leaving. You can grow up,” Peter says and Stiles stares up at him, eyes clotted with tears. “You don’t get it now. But you will. I’m helping you.”

You’re ------ me, Stiles signs and when Peter shakes his head he collapses further. K-I-L-L-I-N-G me.

“No. Stiles, please. Try to hear me,” Peter says and Stiles tries to flail away again. “This is how we get to happy.”

Stiles looks at him then, chin up and mouth a snarl. 

“You will be,” Peter continues. “You’re going to be happy. And you’re going to fall in love with someone else. And they’ll make you feel like--like a normal person. And maybe that’s enough, Stiles. Maybe being normal is enough.”

It is not, Stiles signs jerkily. Not if you aren’t mine.

“I already bought the tickets,” Peter says and lets him go. “I shipped my belongings today. I’m going. I’m going.”

You don’t love me, Stiles flicks in his face. Not if you can go. Liar.

“You’re wrong. Being here--it hurts me, Stiles. It makes me crazy. And I--I _ love _you. Enough to do that hard thing. But I can’t be here. You left the forest and you left it all there. I’m running around like a fucking rat on a wheel in the same place I died,” Peter urges, trying to get Stiles to understand. “I’m drowning every day. And I’m going to take you down. And you don’t even--There are so many reasons I have to go.”

I need you, Stiles signs finally. I need you.

“The Pack is here for you,” Peter says and Stiles shakes his head. “They are. The twins love you. Talia loves you. All of them. Don’t punish them by staying away. Not for my actions.”

All of me is for you, Stiles signs carefully and the fight goes out of him. He sags on his feet, arms curling around himself. Peter smells salt. 

Tears and, under them, blood. Stiles has stepped on pottery shards from the houseplants. Peter approaches him, picks him up with an arm around his ribs and the other under his knees. Stiles is still crying, shivery little hiccups, and Peter buries his face into Stiles’ damp neck. 

“Let me fix this,” Peter says softly, barely more than a sigh, and Stiles coughs on a sob. The bathroom door is open so Peter is able to carry Stiles in and sit him on the bathroom counter. He stays close, letting Stiles cling to him and cry. He is dry-eyed and he wonders if that’s the terrible part of him taking over, the machine. 

“I do love you,” he says and, unfortunately, meets his eyes in the mirror. He is blank faced and pale, distant even to himself. 

Stiles pushes at his chest, presses his forearm to his eyes, takes a gulping breath. Peter drops to a knee and examines the damage. A half-dozen shards are poking out of Stiles’ soles. 

He takes what pain he can, wishes it worked on feelings, and plucks a splinter free. It’s not hard work, the delicate pieces come free with the precision of his claws.

He fights the animal urge to lap up Stiles’ blood—to have every part of him possible. There’s a handful of first-aid supplies in his bathroom now, for Stiles, and he pulls out a roll of gauze and tape. 

Peter stands again and turns Stiles so his foot is in the sink. Stiles goes easily, limp and sniffling. Peter rinses the blood, cleans the cuts and pats him dry with a clean hand towel. 

Peter makes another mistake, looking up at Stiles while he wraps the foot. Stiles is blotchy, red-eyed and swollen, staring at nothing while fat tears dribble from his eyes. 

He tapes the gauze. 

He carries a silent, still Stiles to the bed, settles him under the duvet like a little doll and closes the door. He strips, crawls over Stiles for the last time. Lays still and wishes to touch. 

Stiles stares woodenly at the ceiling, breathing in jerks, and Peter memorizes the curve of his upper lip. He maps the slope of Stiles’ forehead with his eyes and imagines the flutter of Stiles’ eyelashes against his fingertip. His hollow, bony bird-chest. The rapid beating of his heart and the smell of his skin.

The smell of his skin. 

Peter will never feel peace like this again. He will never feel so absolutely safe. He cherishes the comfort, revels in the shimmery and intangible concept of having a home inside Stiles. 

Peter is certain that Stiles is it for him. Stiles is the beginning and end of him. The first true joy and the last real heartbreak. There won’t be a heart to hurt after this. 

All the rest, every lash and cut from his father, every indignity and horror--that was just God or the universe preparing him to be ruined so completely by a wild thing that crept out of the woods. 

He watches Stiles settle into sleep and decides it was all worth it. 

***

Before Peter reaches out or opens his eyes, he knows Stiles is gone. 

The sun is still rising and the bed is cold. Peter opens his eyes and lets his gaze fix on the pillow before him, empty and rumpled. He allows himself a moment to grieve, and if the moment stretches into several--and if his pillow has a wet patch--no one has to know. 

Peter gets out of bed. Cleans up the destruction

Dresses for a plane ride. 

Collects his pre-packed carryon and closes his bedroom door behind him.

Talia is waiting for him at the table, two mugs of coffee before her. One is black as pitch, hers, and the other is pale and sweet. 

Peter takes his coffee and sits across from her. She looks lovely, of course. Still in pajamas with her hair in a braid over her shoulder. 

“He’s in with the twins,” she says. “I don’t know that you’ll see any of them before you leave.”

“That’s alright, I suppose,” Peter says and presses his hands against the sides of the mug. It’s warm. “I don’t blame them.” 

“No,” Talia agrees. “But you can be hurt by them.”

“I don’t know what you’ll do with it now,” Peter says, abruptly, and he pulls a letter out of his pocket. A neat list of his father’s rules, ordered by importance, printed and folded and tucked into an envelope. He pushes it across the table to Talia. 

She puts a hand on it, for a moment her claws flex out and her eyes glow red. Then, she regains control and tucks the letter into the pocket of her dressing gown. 

“Thank you, Left Hand,” she says and inclines her head. Laura’s door cracks open and they wait for her. 

“Uncle,” Laura says behind them. She reaches over his shoulders from behind and hugs him tightly. “Travel safely.”

He pats her hands and leans his cheek against hers briefly. She moves to the coffee pot and fills her travel mug, already in her scrubs. 

“Be well, Laura-loo,” he says and she smiles at him over her shoulder. 

“I will. And I won’t forget your favor,” she says and with another kiss and hug she’s gone. 

Derek is next. He gives Peter a brand new journal and an out-of-character hug. His deputy’s badge pokes Peter in the chest, but Peter holds him tightly. 

“More people are killed by cows than airplanes,” he offers and Peter nods and shakes his hand. 

“Good to know, nephew,” he says and Derek flees. 

He and Talia share a wry smile and then, sooner than expected, it’s time for him to go. He says good-bye to Marcella in her bedroom, promising to return with goodies and presents before her next birthday. Adaline gets a kiss. 

Rachel refuses to open her door. 

He doesn’t knock on the twin’s door. Simply presses his head against the door and whispers his love. 

Then, he leaves. 

Leaves his childhood home. Leaves the memories. 

The granite flooring in the kitchen that he had mopped his blood off of countless times. The porch he sat on, hungry in the dark, for nearly a year when Father was training him to overcome his body. The sitting room he wasn’t allowed in after his fifteenth birthday. The bathroom he cleaned his wounds in, tired and so very alone. 

The lawn where he took back his life by ending anothers. 

The woods where he collected his heart from a bear trap on a snowy, winter day. 

He leaves. Gloriously, momentaneously, finally, he leaves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered adding a transcript of Stiles' letter to his father and Peter's list of rules to this chapter but wasn't sure if it was something people were interested in. If you have an opinion, let me know in the comments. I've also added a playlist to Chapter One. 
> 
> Here we are, at our conclusion to part one. Part two will follow Stiles on his journey to be happy or, at least, not sad. It will be titled 'too much like kerosene (at the edge of scorching)'. 
> 
> Thank you for the kind and thoughtful words. Thank you for reading. This has quickly become a pet project. I didn't expect to finish it until the end of the month and I ended up writing 25k in one week.


	5. CODA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some world-building and missing pieces.

***

  
  


_ Written on a singed, crumpled piece of paper. Has certainly been buried:  _

Dad

I didn’t leave because of you. I love you. I hear you talking to people on the phone and you ask them if I left because you didn’t do enough. You are a good dad. But I didn’t work in the family anymore I didn’t make sense with you and [illegible] mom. She did not like me. I don’t remember now what I did to make her hate me but I am sorry. I was sad when you told me she died after I left.

I wish that I stayed because of that. It doesn’t make sense for both of us to have been alone. I thought you guys would be happy after I left. If I had known you were alone I would have come back.

I had already decided to leave when she hurt my neck. I was going to run away during her next doctor appointment and when she hurt my neck I decided to go then. I was really tired but I kept going as long as I could. I slept in a pile of leaves like the stray cats did in our neighborhood. Then I kept going. 

I read a lot of books when I was planning to leave. I knew how to do lots of things in the forest. You remember the book hatchet by Gary Paulson that mom gave me? I read that a lot and my side of the mountain. I don’t remember who wrote that. So don’t worry about how I was in the forest I was okay.

I was sad a lot in the forest and mad a lot. But I missed you. I’m glad I had to come back. And I’m glad Peter found me. He is my hero. I was stuck and hurt by the bear trap. I am happy he got me out of it even though I bit him. I think Peter is my best friend. 

The twins are my best friends actually but I love Peter. He is not always nice but he is always thinking about me. He got me skittles and I didn’t like them but he helped me throw them at Derek. We were on the roof and Derek was fixing his car. It took a long time for him to look up. Peter says you should check behind the door and on the ceiling whenever you enter a room. Maybe derek didn’t look up because we were outside. 

I am happy to be back with you dad. I missed you in the forest and I am happy you still love me. I never stopped loving you. 

Love stiles 

***

A crisp white piece of paper, folded into an envelope with the word 'Rules' written on the face:

  1. Pack is life. If the Pack fails, I fail. 
  2. Pack comes first. 
  3. My body is a weapon.
  4. I am not my body. My body is the Pack’s and it must be kept up. 
  5. Distractions hurt the Pack and if the Pack hurts so do I. 
  6. Talia’s will is the law. 
  7. Father’s will is the second law. 
  8. Whatever it takes, I do not stop until it is done. 
  9. There is no sacrifice too great for the Pack.
  10. Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet. 

***

  


**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles from 'tantrum' by Emily Corwin. This is part one of three. It is going to end happily and with the main ship Peter/Stiles. If there is anything you feel that should be tagged, feel free to let me know.
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr at [tarantula-teeth](https://tarantula-teeth.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Fall of Snow AKA how to return this rage (how it circles endless)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669630) by [Faladrast (surfgirl1)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surfgirl1/pseuds/Faladrast)


End file.
